Mumbai: After an optimistic start, equities turned weak and ended with modest falls with the SENSEX extending its losing streak to fourth session in a row on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on May 12 due to alternate bouts of buying and selling.

In range-bound activity, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index that opened better at 2955.19 and moved up to the intra-day high at 2965.37, later reacted negatively to profit-booking at higher levels and ended at 2942.78 as against the May 9 close of 2950.00, netting a loss of 7.22 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index, however, improved by 4.76 points to 1488.02 from previous close of 1483.26.

Attributing the initial mild rally to selective purchases by institutional investors, brokers said bear operators were still active and booked profits at the day's higher levels.

Blue-chip counters like Grasim Ind, Satyam Computers, HLL, GACL and a few others that witnessed a smart rally at the outset, later met with resistance and finished with losses.

Software stocks suffered a sharp setback due to selling by institutional investors.

However, bank shares attracted hectic activity and scored impressive gains on fairly heavy purchases by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), which have been buying in several blue-chip stocks at early stages.

Meanwhile, South East Asian markets fared well with the Nikkei ending higher by 68.96 points, the Hang Seng by 71.41 points and the Singapore ST index by 17.82 points.

PTI