Thursday, February 17 2005 16:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Despite heavy FII inflows, equities continued their slide and the Sensex ended 18 points down, extending the losses to third straight session in volatile activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange today (Feb 17, 2005).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened weak at 6598.77 and gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low of 6532.50 before ending the day at 6589.29 against yesterday's close of 6607.78, a net fall of 18.49 points or 0.28 per cent.

Operators and retail investors reportedly were engaged in reducing their holdings despite hefty net investments of Rs 1438.30 crore by Foreign Institutional Investors in the first two sessions of the week.

Attributing the negative activity by operators to Left parties' stiff Opposition to banking reforms, brokers said investors preferred to square up positions ahead of the union budget in the light of problems faced by the Government in pushing forward the reforms agenda.

Positive factors including increased FII activity and likely fund inflows from domestic institutions failed to have any desired impact on the market.

The market recovered smartly from the day's low following fairly good purchases by FIIs during the second half of the session.

Auto sector witnessed continued selling pressure. Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda and Tata Motors registered marked falls. But Maruti Udyog recorded moderate gains on fresh buying support.

Infosys Tech, HPCL, Bharti Tele-Venture, Wipro, ITC, ACC, Zee Telefilms, Ranbaxy and Hindalco also suffered a sharp setback.