Wednesday, December 22 2004 15:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: After achieving another milestone on the Stock Exchange during the morning trading today (Dec 22, 2004) when the Sensex hit a historic high of 6480.20 at nearly 11.15 AM, it reacted down at midsession on emergence of profit-selling by cautious operators.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index resumed firm at 6465.51 as against yesterday's close of 6451.30 and soon firmed up further to touch an all-time peak of 6480.20.

However, profit-selling at higher level, pulled down the Sensex to a low of 6405.34 before being quoted at 6409.34 at 1.30 PM, down by 41.96 points from the previous day's close.

Dealers attributed the fresh selling to profit booking by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which were heavy net buyers for a long time, offloading shares worth Rs 49.60 crore on Monday.

As a result, wary operators also did not want to miss the bus and offloaded part of their holdings, leading to slide in share values.

Though profit-taking wiped out most of the early gains in textile segment, some of the shares even traded in positive terrain on news of helpful tax regime in the next budget to help the textiles sector compete international in the post-quota regime.

Top heavyweight and petro-chem giant Reliance Industries (RIL) continued to be in good demand and was quoted remarkably higher.