Mumbai: The market snapped four-day winning streak and today (Nov 19, 2004) dropped sharply to end 64 point lower as stocks came under heavy sell-off triggered by the "ownership issues" in the country's largest private company Reliance Industries (RIL) and a marked rise in inflation number.

Even though RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani discounted any adverse impact on the company's functioning, his reported admission of differences over the "ownership issues" led to heavy profit booking by investors, brokers said.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index, which opened higher at 6030.81 and even firmed up to the intra-day high of 6044.55, later turned weak dipping to the day's low of 5953.42 before ending the day at 5961.71 as against yesterday's close of 6025.47, a net fall of 63.76 points or 1.06 per cent.

The sell-off was more in the nature of profit booking by operators and retail investors, which seemed to have availed the opportunity to take benefits with the expiry of November contract in the derivatives only a few sessions away.

The sentiment was also affected by a marked rise in the Inflation. Inflation jumped to 7.76 per cent in the week ended Nov 6, 2004 amid fears of further rise in the coming weeks.

Domestic mutual funds, which reported net sales for the past several days, were believed to be heavy sellers during the sessions.

Blue chips including RIL, SBI, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Satyam Computer, L&T, REL, HPCL, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, ICICI Bank BHEL, HLL, Dr Reddy's, Ranbaxy, ONGC and Maruti Udyog suffered a sharp setback.