Mumbai: Notwithstanding the encouraging second quarter working results announced by top heavyweight, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), bear operators tightened their vice-like grip extending losses for the third session and the Sensex dipped by another 59.57 points to close below 5600-mark at 5581.49 on the stock exchange in Mumbai today (Oct 25, 2004).

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly lower at 5633.48 as against last Thursday's (Oct 21, 2004) close of 5641.06 and remained in the red for most of the day to touch a low of 5573.19. Finally, it concluded near one-month low at 5581.49, a steep fall of 1.06 per cent.

Dealers attributed heavy offloading to slew of negative factors like sustain rise in global crude oil prices, weak overseas advices and continued selling by local funds.

RIL has posted a 38.7 per cent rise in its net profit at Rs 1,752 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2004 as against Rs 1,263 crore in the same period last fiscal.

However, the impressive results failed to boost up the sentiment as selling of long positions by operators just few days ahead of the end of October contracts on Thursday in Futures & Options segment weighed negatively, dealers said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, hit a new all-time high of $55.67 a barrel in electronic trading.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled by 107.95 points and 38.48 points last Friday (Oct 22, 2004). Southeast Asian markets also ended sharply lower today.