Mumbai: The market snapped three-session winning streak and ended down by 43 points on profit booking by operators and domestic mutual funds even as some corporates announced disappointing working results for second quarter.

Inflation, which maintained downtrend for four successive weeks, also was static at 7.1 per cent for the week ended October 16 and crude oil prices remained above $50 a barrel despite a sharp fall during the week.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5724.46 but later ran out of steam as investors pressed sales in view of the concluding session of the week, and moved in a narrow range of 5731.35 and 5664.04 before ending the day at 5672.27 as against yesterday's (Oct 28, 2004) close of 5715.62, a net fall of 43.35 points or 0,76 per cent.

Meanwhile, Foreign Institutional Investors reported net investments of Rs 71.70 crore on Wednesday (Oct 27, 2004), taking the total net purchases to Rs 239.70 crore between October 25 and 27.

Domestic investors seemed to have availed the opportunity to book profits at the prevailing higher price levels in view of the weekend.

Oil major HPCL, besides Bank of India and i-flex came out with lower net profits for Q2 than the corresponding period last year. HPCL reported a 33.6 per cent drop in net profits at Rs 294.31 crore in Q2 as against 443.84 crore in the same period previous year.

Tata Motors and Tata Steel, however, announced results for Q2 in keeping with the market expectations, brokers said.

RIL, Tata Steel, Infosys Tech, HPCL, Satyam Computer, MUL and Grasim recorded sharp falls.