Mumbai: Stocks dropped further and pushed the Sensex down by another 67 points at close at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Nov 19) on sustained selling by operators, as also absence of any worthwhile buying by institutional investors.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened sharply lower at 4,868.43 and gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low at 4,800.00 before ending at 4,823.73 as against yesterday's close of 4,891.13, netting a fall of 67.40 points or 1.38 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index dipped by 39.90 points to 2,488.07 from previous close of 2,527.97.

Reacting negatively to Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) net sales position on Monday (Nov 17), investors continued to reduce their exposure in the prevailing weak trend, brokers said and added that they seemed to be taking precautions due to approaching year end when FIIs generally turn sellers in a bid to book profits.

FIIs, which made record investments in the current year with their monthly net purchases breaking previous peaks, were net sellers to the tune of Rs 20 crore after slowing down activity during last week.

The sentiment was also affected by weak trend on Wall Street last night. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down by 87 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index dipped by about 28 points yesterday.

Key counters like RIL, HLL, HPCL, Grasim, BHEL, L&T, ACC, Satyam Computers, Tisco, Tata Motor, SBI, ONGC, BSES, HDFC, ICICI Bank, MTNL and Zee Telefilms recorded sharp falls.

Infosys Tech and ITC, however, showed marked gains.

PTI