Thursday, October 6 2005 14:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Reacting negatively to extremely weak trend in world markets, the Bombay Stock Exchange Benchmark 30-share Index today (Oct 6, 2005) tumbled by 143 points in fairly high volatility at the mid-session on across-the-board selling pressure from investors.

The sensex opened moderately lower at 8693.20 as against yesterday's (Oct 5, 2005) close of 8724.47 and later dropped sharply to a low of 8558.96 before being quoted at 8581.49 at 1.00 pm, down by 142.98 points from previous close.

Operators and retail investors were believed to be heavy sellers in the overheated market that was due for a technical correction, brokers said.

Investors reacted quickly to the negative trend in global markets even as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net investments of Rs 422 crore on Tuesday.

However, investors seemed confident about the market fundamentals saying, "The setback should be considered a necessary correction for the good health of the market."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday ended down by 124 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell by 36.34 points on Wall Street.

In Asian markets, the Nikkei was down by over 330 points and the Hang Seng by 334 points in afternoon trading.