Mumbai: In fairly volatile trading, the Sensex declined by another 15.94 points to close at 5511.81 on the stock exchange today (Sep 27, 2004) on sustained profit-booking by operators and domestic funds, extending downward correction for the third session.

Blue-chips continued to rule weak on selling prompted by flaring up in global crude oil prices that could lead to further rise in the inflation rate, dealers said.

Out of the 30 index-based scrips, 24 including heavyweights like RIL, ITC, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Ranbaxy, SBI, Wipro and Tata Motors finished with marked losses.

However, remarkable gains in Infosys Tech, Hindalco, Grasim, ONGC and ICICI Bank cushioning the Sensex fall.

Crude oil for November delivery rose as high as $ 49.36 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, 4 cents below the record on Aug 20, 2004. Oil traded at $ 49.20 a barrel.

After resuming on a positive note at 5530.00 as against last Friday's (Sep 24, 2004) close of 5527.75, the Sensex immediately touched a high of 5545.73. Later, higher levels attracted selling and it dipped below 5500-mark to a low of 5486.41.

Finally, it recovered partly on short covering ahead of expiry of September contract on Thursday (Sep 23, 2004) and ended at 5511.81, still showing a net fall of 0.29 per cent.

Select metal and pharma shares attracted investment buying from institutional investors and as a result the sectorial BSE-Metal index rose by 46.18 points or 0.95 per cent to 4930.91 from 4884.73 and the BSE-HC index by 12.95 to 2580.24 from 2567.29 previously.