Thursday, January 12 2006 17:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex extended its losses to third straight day in a roller-coaster ride and today (Jan 12,2006)ended 64 points down as top heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys Technologies suffered sharp setbacks following their dismal third quarter earnings.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) fluctuated widely in a range of 9,435.26 and 9,303.71 before ending the day at 9,380.88 against Tuesday's close of 9,445.30, a net fall of 64.42 points or 0.68 per cent.

RIL and Infosys Tech faced investors' wrath as the net profits of both companies fell short of market expectations. RIL posted a lower net profit for the first time in the last ten quarters owing to planned shut down of its Jamnagar refinery while the 7 per cent growth reported by IT major was well below the market projections, brokers said.

Despite strong economic fundamentals and consistent and heavy FII inflows in the current month, operators and retail investors as well as mutual funds preferred to book profits at higher price levels.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have pumped in over Rs 2,287 crore in equity during last week, were believed to be buyers at the day's lower levels.

Other IT stocks like Satyam Computer, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd and Wipro scored handsome gains on fairly good buying.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram reiterated that reforms, though progressing slowly, were on course to push up economic growth and contain government's deficits in the new year and also assured that disinvestment of non-Navratnz PSUs was on track.