Thursday, September 22 2005 16:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex today (Sept 22, 2005) plunged by over 260 points, the largest intra-day fall registered since May 17, last year on the Bombay Stock Exchange, as nervous market players and investors continued to reduce their holdings.

The BSE Sensex quoted lower by 260 points at 8,222.58 at 1500 hrs on emergence of selling by funds in index-linked stocks of Reliance Industries, Reliance Capital, Tata Consultancy, Tata Steel, Infosys Technologies, Bajaj Auto, Grasim, Housing Development Finance, ONGC, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India.

The market experienced the second consecutive intra-day fall. yesterday (Sept 21, 2005), it went into a tailspin and lost over 235 points after zooming to a record high of over 8,500 points recently.

The key index had tanked 565 points in a single trading session on May 17, 2004.

The market sentiment turned sluggish on reports that a meeting of officials from Finance Ministry, Central Board of Direct Taxes and Directorate of Revenue held last week, planned to look into the ongoing boom in the stock markets.

The trading sentiment dampened further as market regulator Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) imposed special huge margins on buying at several counters.

The Sensex was moving lower by 239 points at 8,261.58 at 1130 hrs as major market players offloaded part of their holdings in heavy-weight as well as small and midcap stocks.