Mumbai: The Sensex cut short three-session upward march and ended down by 14 points after breaching the 5,600-mark during the trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 23, 2003) due to squaring up by operators as well as profit-booking by domestic institutions.

However, a selective rally in heavy-weighted counters like Infosys Technologies, Zee Telefilms, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, HPCL, Dr Reddy and Hero Honda saved the Sensex from a major fall.

Rising to the intra-day high at 5,616.25 during the first half of the session, the BSE barometer later met with a strong resistance, as operators began squaring up positions in the derivatives segment in view of expiry of December contract tomorrow. The market will remain closed on Thursday (Dec 25, 2003) on account of Christmas holiday.

Reflecting the pressure in the last one hour, the Sensex dipped to the day's low at 5,550.52 before ending at 5,564.33 as against yesterday's close of 5,577.96, a fall of 13.63 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index dropped by 20.16 points to 2,900.61 from previous close of 2,920.77.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have been consistent net buyers for the past few weeks, reportedly pumped in fresh funds on the bourses.

Majority blue chips including RIL, ONGC, Satyam Computer, BHEL, BSES, Grasim, HDFC Bank, ITC, L&T, MTNL and some others suffered a sharp setback after initial firmness due to late sell-off by operators and local institutions.