Mumbai: After opening on a promising note, stocks later crashed sending the SENSEX reeling down to end with a whopping 78-point fall on the Bombay Stock Exchange, (BSE) on July 21 due to heavy sell-off by operators as well as domestic funds in the face of a slow down in FII activity.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index began higher at 3655.26 but later met with a strong resistance and gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low at 3564.41 before ending at 3569.58 as against July 18's close of 3647.58, a net loss of 78 points or 2.14 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index tumbled by 36.70 points to 1794.24 from previous close of 1830.94.

Bulls were seen winding up positions built up over the last couple of months in a bid to book profits at prevailing higher levels as the Unit Trust of India (UTI) reportedly pressed sales in heavy weighted counters like HLL, RIL, Tisco, Telco, SBI and others during the trading.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have reduced their activity since last week. They made small net purchases of Rs 107 crore in the first four sessions between July 14 and 17 after pumping in almost record funds in the six months.

Bulls which had created large positions over the period, availed the opportunity to get the maximum benefits by unloading their position in several blue-chip stocks.

The sell-off was so intensive that the SENSEX even broke the 3585-support level indicating further slide in equities unless the flow of investments increased as anticipated by the market, brokers said.

PTI