Saturday, January 14 2006 16:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex paused for a technical adjustment after consecutive two weekly rallies and corrected by 2.76 per cent in the week under review even as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) turned heavy sellers.

FIIs reported net sales of over Rs 1,031 crore in two days on January 10 and 12 after their inflows of Rs 397 crore on Monday while domestic mutual funds made net sales of Rs 797 crore during the initial three days of the week.

In the week to January 14, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) moved downwards to the low of 9,303.71 before ending the week at 9,374.19 against last weekend's close of 9,640.29, a net fall of 266.10 points.

The sudden negative reaction in the market, which was on its course towards the important 10,000 mark, was seen as a necessary correction by analysts as well as investors.

The market is expected to touch the magic 10K mark before the Union Budget presented at February-end if the present flow of global liquidity sustained in the days to come.

Counting on current market valuations and robust growth in the Indian economy, FIIs would have no reason to withdraw from bourses with the country providing better opportunities for investments than others, according to stock brokers.

The negative activity by institutional investors as well as market players could be attributed to dismal third quarter earnings by major corporates RIL and Infosys Technologies.

RIL posted a lower net profit for the first time in the last ten quarters while 7 per cent growth reported by IT major reported a 7 per cent growth, which was well below market expectations.

Meanwhile, it is heartening for the market that the Government remained confident that reforms were on course to push up economic growth and to contain deficits in new year.

Besides top index heavyweights RIL and Infosys Tech, others like ICICI Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India(SBI), Bharti Tele-Ven, Satyam Computers, Tata Steel and TCS Ltd recorded sharp falls.

However, Dr Reddy's Lab, Ranbaxy and ONGC scored handsomegains on fresh buying support.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index fell sharply by 118.71 points to end the week at 4,986.21 from previous weekend's close of 5,104.92.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply lower at 1,199.36 and 451.16 at the weekend compared to last weekend's close of 1,223.98 and 456.29 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index spured sharply by 68.63 points to closethe week at 3,849.25 from preceding weekend's close of 3,917.88 and the Dollex-30 ended the week substantially down at 1,738.86 from 1,772.21 at the last weekend.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Niftyand the S&P CNX Defty fell back sharply by 63.45 points and 25.40 points to end the week at 2,850.55 and 2,233.45 against last weekend's close of 2,914.00 and 2,258.85 respectively.

The S&P CNX Nifty Junior moved down by 48.70 points to finish the week at 5,810.30 from 5,859.00 at the previous weekend.

During the week, the volume of business on the BSE and the NSE was relatively low at Rs 16,074 crore and Rs 30,836 crore compared to last week's turnover of Rs 18,400 crore and Rs 33,703 crore respectively.