Mumbai: Share prices met with all-round selling by operators and local funds soon after a firm start and turned sharply weak at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on September 12, sending the benchmark steeply down by 87.22 points to close at 4305.91.

Continued long bull liquidation and profit-taking by local funds and operators was behind the slump, a dealer said.

Barring a few second-line new economy shares that survived to close in positive terrain, majority of scrips from other segments suffered sharp to moderate setback, he said.

Public Sector Undertaking (PSUs) stocks bore the brunt of institutional selling and ended with steep losses.

A downslide in the SENSEX could be gauged by sharp fall in 29 out of 30 index-based shares including heavyweights like RIL, HLL, Infosys Tech, SBI, ITC, Grasim, Dr Reddy, HCL Tech, Satyam Computers, MTNL, Ranbaxy, Telco and Tisco. Only BHEL closed with gains.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened firm at 4407.72 as against yesterday's close of 4393.13 and immediately touch a high of 4437.00. Later it met with strong resistance at that level and dipped to a low of 4297.71, before concluding at 4305.91, revealing a fall of 1.99 per cent over yesterday.

Similarly, the broad-based BSE-100 index tumbled by 56.95 points to close at 2271.44 from previous close of 2328.39.

Most of the shares in the IT segment which were in the limelight at early stages following higher Wall Street advices, reacted down on heavy sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index ended higher last night.

PTI