Mumbai: The market turned weak after early signs of consolidation and ended substantially down by 55 points due to late sell-off by investors amid slowdown in FII activity during the day (Dec 8, 2004).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index, which surged up to the day's high of 6359.20 at early stages, gradually moved downwards to end the day at 6261.52 as against yesterday's close of 6316.28, a net fall of 54.76 points or 0.87 per cent.

Slowdown in FII activity after a long spell of inflows of foreign investments coupled with continued differences over "ownership issues" in Reliance group dampened investors spirit, brokers said, adding "the downslide might continue further as foreign institutional investors are likely to book profits in the overbought market ahead of the year end".

Brokers did not even rule out possibility of the Sensex falling to the magical level of 6000 or 6050 by the yearend.

The sudden sell-off was partly attributed to news that the battle between Ambani brothers intensified with Anil questioning Mukesh's assertion that ownership issues were settled by their father Dhirubhai.

After making record investments in any single calendar year, in the first 11 months of 2004, FIIs were believed to have slowed down their activity due to approaching yearend.

Domestic mutual funds and operators too were seen booking profits in blue chip counters.

Blue chip counters including RIL, Wipro, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Satyam Computers, REL, HPCL, HLL, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Maruti Udyog, HDFC Bank and a few others recorded sharp falls.