Mumbai: The benchmark index tumbled by yet another 91.32 points to close at 5759.29 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (March 10, 2004), pulled down by sustained heavy all-round selling and extended losses to the second straight session in the absence of any worthwhile buying support.

Sharp erosion in the index could be gauged by heavy offloading in top heavyweights like RIL, HLL, Infosys Tech, Tata Motors, SBI, BHEL, Grasim, Hero Honda, HPCL, ICICI Bank, L&T and Ranbaxy which finished with steep declines.

Profit-booking ahead of the fiscal year-end also weighed on share values, dealers said.

The BSE-30 share Sensitive Index opened lower at 5833.19 as against yesterday's close of 5850.61 and remained in negative terrain throughout the day before concluding at 5759.29, a sharp fall of 1.56 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 also dipped further by 33.12 points to end at 3052.95 from previous close of 3086.07.

Led by SBI, majority of the banking counters bore the brunt of the selling, resulting in the Bankex plunging by 79.99 points or 2.66 per cent to end at 2924.87.

Cement and auto shares were also at the receiving end while IT stocks ruled mixed with select buying pushing up a few key stocks while others succumbed to sell orders.

Massive selling in both new and old economy stocks resulted in the market giving up a major part of the recent gains, a trader commented.

Even net investments of Rs 357 crore by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) on March 8 failed to arrest the fall in share values.