Wednesday, January 18 2006 17:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The sensex today (Jan 18, 2006) dipped by 77 points as stocks came under heavy pressure triggered by a meltdown in global indices after demerged Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) commanded higher discovered base price in a special trading session this morning.

RIL, which closed higher at Rs 713.95 than the expected level of Rs 700 in the scrip's price discovery session, later succumbed to heavy selling in normal trading.

It, however, broke its overnight record and clocked highest ever turnover of Rs 2,257.21 crore in today's special and normal trading on the BSE.

In high volatility, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) fluctuated between 9,302.78 and 9158.44 before ending at 9,237.53 against previous close of 9,314.13, a net fall of 76.60 points or 0.82 per cent.

A slowdown in FII inflows coupled with a stocks plunge in Asian markets created panic among investors, brokers said.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which were net sellers in last week, reported negative activity on Monday.

RIL, ONGC, SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Motor, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Grasim, Infosys Tech, L&T, Maruti Udyog and Satyam Computer recorded sharp losses due to selling pressure.

RIL closed sharply down from the discovered base price even as the company's assured growth in the future.

In Asian markets, the Nikkei ended down by 464.77 points, the Hang Seng by 94.99 points, the Taiwan Index by 212.12 points, the Singapore St by 17.66 points and the Kospi by 36.67 points.