Tuesday, March 15 2005 17:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Depressed conditions today (Mar 15, 2005) tightened the grip on the stock market and the Sensex drifted further down by 58 points at close in highly volatile trade as heavy-weighted stocks bore the brunt of selling by operators and domestic mutual funds.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), however, were believed to be selective buyers in steel shares.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened on a promising note at 6815.59 and later fluctuated either-way in a range of 6823.46 and 6730.23 before ending at 6752.45 as against yesterday's close of 6810.04, a net loss of 57.59 points or 0.85 per cent.

Reliance group shares were the worst hit on sell-off triggered by news that Government would continue the enquiry into the allotment of Reliance Infocomm shares to three unlisted firms at the rate of one rupee each.

Domestic funds and operators continued to book profits due to approaching end of the current financial year.

On the other hand, pharma counters and select key scrips attracted brisk activity on FII purchases. Tata Steel, Cipla, Dr Reddy's, Essar Steel and ITC recorded smart gains.

The sentiment was partly affected by slowdown in FIIs activity. FIIs reported relatively small amount of net investments of Rs 130.80 crore on March 11.

Blue chip counters like RIL, Tata Motors, REL, L&T, HLL, Infosys Tech, HDFC Bank, Grasim, BHEL, Maruti Udyog, Hindalco, Hero Honda, HDFC and Bharti Tele-Venture showed sharp falls.