Mumbai: Select heavyweight counters including Hindustan Lever (HLL) and Reliance Industries (RIL) suffered a marked setback pushing the SENSEX in negative territory on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on December 23 on selling pressure from domestic mutual funds.

Others like Infosys Technologies, HCL Techno and MTNL also registered moderate losses.

However, PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) stocks like HPCL, BHEL and Guj Mineral Development as well as Power shares like BSES and Tata Power and a few others scored handsome gains on fresh buying.

Steel stocks also fared well on investment buying.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who were net buyers last week, were believed to be totally sidelined due to approaching Christmas.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened firm at 3346.56 and rose to the intra-day high at 3351.01. However, it later met with a moderate resistance and dipped to 3321.07 before ending at 3329.61 as against last Friday's close of 3337.22, a net loss of 7.61 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index eased by 5.87 points to 1635.34 from previous close of 1641.21.

Domestic funds led by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) which was consistent seller in the past few sessions, seemed to be booking profits in blue-chip counters.

Second-line software stocks suffered a sharp setback due to selling pressure from speculators and retailers.

PTI