Mumbai: Late purchases by foreign funds helped stocks overcome early strong resistance and end with small variations either side at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on March 25 even as the overnight plunge on Wall Street had an adverse impact on the Asian markets.

As a result, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index which had dipped sharply to the intra- day low at 3102.65 at early part of the session, later rallied smartly to end flat at 3140.42 as against yesterday's close of 3140.36, a minor upside change of 0.06 point.

However, the broad-based BSE-100 Index finished slightly down at 1553.09 from previous close of 1553.67.

Stocks brokers said initially share prices suffered a fresh setback in line with a stocks crash on Wall Street on March 24 on heavy selling triggered by continued flow of negative reports including news that Saddam's army had captured US soldiers and that the allied forces were meeting stiff resistance in several places.

However, stocks staged a smart recovery later as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) reportedly made fairly good purchases in many blue-chip counters focussing their attention on IT sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial average and the Nasdaq Composite Index on March 24 tumbled by 307.29 points and 52.06 points respectively.

In Asian markets, The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei ended 196.31 points lower due to growing concerns about the impact of the war in Iraq.

PTI