Mumbai: Stocks crashed dramatically after a strong start and sent the Sensex reeling down to close with a whopping 130 points fall at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Jan 15, 2004) on heavy sell-off by foreign hedge funds.

The sudden sell-off was largely attributed to reports of postponement of Cabinet decision on a proposal to hike FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) limit in Telecom sector to 74 per cent.

Shooting up past 6200-level to the intra-day high at 6248.81 at early stages, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index later crashed like a pack of cards to end the day at 6063.91 as against yesterday's close of 6194.11 netting a fall of 130.20 points or 2.10 per cent.

Despite the Government's decision to raise FDI limit in petroleum sector to 100 per cent, foreign hedge funds led by a leading US-based fund Templeton resorted to selling in a number of blue chip counters.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were the principal driving force behind the market for the first eight sessions of the year and have pumped in Rs 1837 crore in the current month till January 12.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index also dropped sharply by 58.14 points to 3206.43 from previous close of 3264.57.

Heavyweights like RIL, BHEL, Tisco, Tata Motor, Satyam Computers, Infosys Tech, SBI, Wipro, BSES, L&T, Grasim, GACL, HPCL, MTNL and Bajaj Auto suffered a sharp setback.

However, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank, Federal Bank and a few others showed sharp gains on buying support by operators as well as local funds.