Mumbai: The prevailing bull-run was arrested on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on December 3 as emergence of profit booking by institutional investors and operators pulled down equity prices and the SENSEX reacted down sharply by 40.22 points to close at 3230.14.

While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) reportedly booked profits in front-line software stocks like Infosys Tech, Wipro and Satyam Computer, domestic funds sold select new economy as well as old economy shares.

Second-rung stocks, which were in the limelight for the past couple of days, also dropped sharply on heavy selling by speculators.

Operators and retail investors also joined the selling bandwagon, which dampened the sentiment further.

The BSE-30 share Sensitive Index opened slightly better at 3276.70 from the previous close of 3276.70 and moved up further to a high of 3292.87. Later, profit selling pulled down the SENSEX to a low of 3223.03 before concluding at 3230.14, a sharp fall of 1.23 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index also dipped by 23.11 points to close at 1601.59 from previous close of 1624.70.

Petrochem giant RIL, which attracted heavy demand during the early stages on the news that the company had emerged as the front-runner to acquire a South Korean petrochemical company KP Chemicals, turned weak towards the fag end on fresh profit taking by local funds, dealers said.

Majority of public sector undertaking (PSU) counters also showed a weak trend at close after the initial rally.

PTI