Saturday, October 29 2005 14:46 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Discounting some positive developments, the Sensex plunged by another 4.75 per cent in sustained volatility during the week as bears tightened their grip with bulls on the defensive while Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) continued to pull out from Indian bourses.

In the four consecutive weekly losing string, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) has fallen by a massive 949 points or 11 per cent mainly because of the negative role of FIIs, which had driven the Sensex to new peaks at the end of September.

FIIs reported net sales of Rs 1573.40 crore in the first four days of week, taking the current month's outflows to Rs 3439 crore in Cash and Rs 2794 crore in the Futures compared to their net investments of Rs 4600 crore in September.

In the week to October 29, the Sensex fluctuated widely in a range of 8126.27 and 7656.15 before ending the week at 7685.64 as against last weekend's close of 8068.95, a net loss of 383.31 points.

The largest bank State Bank of India (SBI) and Automobile major Tata Motors as also engineering giant L&T disappointed investors with dismal working for second quarter.

The growth rate of net profits of both the key company was far below the market projections.

Even as investors found it difficult to trace any major negative trigger for the hefty slide, the expiry of October contract in derivatives and discouraging global trend were seen as the principal factors that forced them to be cautious.

Operators and foreign funds were keen in squaring up long outstanding positions before the Futures and Options (F&O) contract concluded on Thursday (October 27).

On the positive side, the Reserve Bank India's (RBI) step to keep the bank rate steady in its monetary policy provided temporary relief. Domestic funds too made fairly good buying at lower levels.

Mutual funds were net buyers to the tune of Rs 791 crore in the first four sessions taking the total net purchases to Rs 2,426 crore in October.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index dived by another 199.60 points to close the week at 4,057.46 from last weekend's close of 4,257.06.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply down at 974.99 and 360.00 at the weekend compared to previous weekend's close of 1,022.34 and 377.49 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index tumbled by 146.87 points to finish the week at 3,121.75 from preceding weekend's close of 3,268.62 and the Dollex-30 ended the week sharply lower at 1,399.40 from 1,469.20 at the last weekend.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty fell sharply by 127.70 points and 91.90 points to end the week at 2,316.05 and 1,780.20 against last weekend's close of 2,443.75 and 1872.10 respectively. The S&P CNX Nifty Junior dropped further by 183.40 points to conclude the week at 4,617.90 from 4,801.30 at the previous weekend.

During the week, the volume of business on the BSE and the NSE dropped substantially to Rs 12,605 crore and Rs 28,682 crore from last week's turnover of Rs 15,646 crore and Rs 32,764 crore respectively.