Wednesday, March 23 2005 11:09 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar 23, 2005) fell back sharply after an initial pullback price rally and was quoted slightly down at 10:30 hrs (IST) in sustained volatile trade on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) due to consistent selling pressure from operators in reaction to a hike in US interest rates.

After a weak start at 6533.65, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index spurted to a high of 6568.20 on the back of a pullback rally on fairly good buying from local institutions.

However, the Sensex fell back to a low of 6509.04 as operators booked profits before being quoted at 6527.14 at 10:30 hrs (IST), down by 8.31 points.

Operators and retailers were unwilling to make any fresh commitments due to approaching fiscal year end.

High crude oil price that remained well above $ 57 a barrel and a 0.25 percentage point hike in US interest rates by the Federal Reserve yesterday (Mar 22, 2005) had a sentimental impact on the market.

The slowdown in Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) inflows also affected the sentiment. FIIs reported a meagre net investment Rs 43.80 crore on Monday (Mar 21, 2005).

Brokers said that the market was getting resistance at every rise with operators resorting to reduce their positions.

Initially, ACC, Bharti Tele-Venture, HPCL, Grasim, HLL, ITC, Wipro and a few others showed smart gains. However, RIL, SBI, Infosys Tech, ICICI Bank, HDFC, BHEL and Cipla were quoted substantially lower on continued selling pressure.