Saturday, January 15 2005 15:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The bourses saw another round of intensive sell-off and crumbled by 3.84 per cent in the week under review, even as the negative reaction was considered to be a healthy correction to overextended gains.

Extending the weekly losses to second straight week to January 15, the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) Benchmark 30-share Index fluctuated wildly in a range of 6469.09 and 6070.33 before ending the week at 6173.82 as against last weekend's close of 6420.46, a net fall of 246.64 points.

In continued volatile conditions, the sensex even had ended at a one-and-half-month low at 6102.74 on January 12.

The selling spree was so severe from hedge funds that consistent support extended by Indian financial institutions in a bid to salvage the market situation failed to have any desired impact. Domestic institutions reported net purchases of Rs 260.63 crore in the first four sessions of the week.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were aggressive sellers in the futures segment and reportedly brought down their positions in Futures by over Rs 1662 crore in the first fortnight of the calendar year 2005.

FIIs also remained net sellers in equity to the tune of Rs 305.10 crore in the first four days of the week.

Among the major developments that had a bearing on market was the scrapping of the Press Note 18 and a statement by the RBI Governor Y V Reddy that a tax could be considered on FII inflows followed by a prompt clarification by Finance Minister P Chidambaram that the Government had no plans to tax FIIs.

Announcements of excellent quarterly results by IT majors like Infosys Technologies and TCS Ltd contributed strongly to the "bounce back" in prices on January 13.

The Government scrapped the restrictive provisions on foreign investment under the contentious joint venture regulation, Press Note 18, which, it said, was a "source of discomfort" to foreign investors.

Meanwhile, Inflation fell by 0.61 per cent to 5.78 per cent in the week ended January 1.

Pharma shares were the worst hit amid concerns that the Government would impose excise duty on the maximum retail price as against the earlier practice of calculating excise on the factory price.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index fell sharply by 146.94 points to end the week at 3331.01 as against last weekend's close of 3477.95.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply lower at 826.03 and 313.63 at the weekend compared to previous weekend's close of 861.70 and 327.32 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index tumbled by 110.68 points to close the week at 2596.13 from preceding weekend's close of 2706.81 and the Dollex-30 finished the week sharply down at 1155.92 from 1202.65 last weekend.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty and the S&P CNX Defty nose-dived by another 84.40 points and 59.30 points to end the week at 1931.10 and 1530.45 from last weekend's close of 2015.50 and 1589.75 respectively. The CNX Nifty Junior dipped by 183 points to conclude the week at 4145.65 from Rs 4327.65 at the last weekend.

The total volume of business on the BSE and NSE was relatively low at Rs 11,238 crore and Rs 25,786 crore compared to last week's turnover of Rs 13,016 crore and Rs 28,689 crore respectively.