Mumbai: Stocks suffered a sharp setback pulling the sensex down by 78 points at close in lacklustre activity at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Mar 22, 2004) on fresh sell-off by institutional investors amid absence of any buying support.

Resuming on a better note at 5446.88, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index later turned weak and gradually moved downwards to the day's low at 5347.05 before ending at 5365.40 as against last Friday's (Mar 19, 2004) close of 5443.44, a net fall of 78.04 points or 1.43 per cent.

The volume was extremely low with domestic mutual funds and Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) making small sales in a bid to trim their positions in the Futures and Options segment ahead of expiry of March contract on Thursday (Mar 18, 2004), brokers said adding that operators were completely sidelined.

FIIs, which were net buyers during last week, reportedly were engaged in selling in select key stocks while some local funds remained sellers in view of the year-end considerations.

Operators and retailers seemed to have preferred to keep away from making any commitments in the light of the general elections to be held during the next couple of months.

Key counters like RIL, Infosys Technologies, HDFC Bank, Tisco, Tata Motors, SBI, Satyam Computers, BHEL, ACC, ONGC and Wipro recorded sharp falls on fairly heavy selling pressure.

However, a selective smart rally in index-based stocks like HLL, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, Hindalco, ITC and ICICI Bank helped mitigate the slide in sensex.