Monday, March 21 2005 16:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The market beat a hasty retreat after a brief price-rally last weekend, ending down by 44 points in fairly volatile trade on fresh sell-off by operators amid high crude oil prices and slowdown in FII activity.

After an initial upsurge to the day's high of 6734.72, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index fluctuated erratically in a wide range of about 100 points before ending the day at 6656.69 as against last Friday's close of 6700.34, a net fall of 43.65 points or 0.65 per cent.

Partly attributing the negative approach by operators to the financial year-end, brokers said domestic players generally were sellers in select blue chip counters in a bid to take benefits at every price rise.

Operators seemed to be unwilling to make any commitments following concerns over rising crude oil prices that in the long term, pose a threat to economic growth.

The market is likely to remain under pressure following slowdown in FII activity and rising crude oil prices, brokers said adding in the long term, high oil prices pose a threat to economic growth, brokers added.

As a result of high crude prices, the Union Cabinet is likely to consider during the week raising petrol prices by Rs 2.80 per litre and diesel by about Rs 2 per litre.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have drastically slowed down activity for the past couple of weeks after pumping in massive investments in February and the first two weeks of March.

RIL, SBI, Tata Motors, ONGC, HPCL, HLL, Bajaj Auto, ITC, Maruti Udyog, ICICI Bank, Grasim, Tata Steel, GACL and HDFC recorded sharp falls on selling pressure.