Friday, September 23 2005 12:17 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange Benchmark 30-share Index continued its downslide for another day after a 100-point roller-coaster ride in 30 minutes of trading and was quoted 66 points lower at 11.30 am on fresh panic selling sparked off by news of I-T raids on stock brokers.

The Sensex, which fluctuated in a range of 8327.35 and 8221.64 during the first thirty minutes of trading, later fell sharply to a low of 8121.81 before being quoted at 8155.94 at 10.30 a.m., down by 65.70 points.

Yesterday (Sept 22, 2005), the market had crashed by 266 points or 3.13 per cent on panic selling triggered by reports of raids on stocks brokers across the country by Income Tax authorities as well as a series of steps initiated by the financial market regulators following an unprecedented and rapid upsurge in share prices in the month.

Attributing volatility to approaching expiry of Futures contract on next Thursday, brokers said investors were selling stocks heavily on fears of more raids on stockbrokers as well as several curbs imposed by the stock exchanges.

Hedge funds were believed to be heavy sellers in a number of counters. Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) reported inflows of Rs 731 crore in the first three days of the week.

The market fundamentals still remained strong and a sharp setback is considered as a necessary technical correction to the overheated market, brokers added.