MUMBAI, July 13: The one-week rally in share prices came to a halt on Monday as equities gave in to selling pressure following the crisis in Asian markets and a knee-jerk reaction by unnerved market participants to the developments on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) front. The weak composition of the ruling government, as mentioned by Hegde, only added to the selling pressure, with the Sensex falling by 79.57 points to close at 3,322.17 points.Although the net decline, according to market experts, was in line with the necessary technical correction anticipated earlier, the volatile intra-day movement of the Sensex in the band of 3,320.11 points and 3,461.12 points - the intra-day low and high respectively - came as a rude shock to the market. The Nifty Index also registered a net loss of 15.80 points to close at 964.35 points.The fall in the Asian market indices by over 2 per cent during mid-session accompanied by rumours of a likely fall in the value of their currency saw local operatorsrush to cover their risk. "Optimism seems to have vanished from the local markets," said a BSE broker while explaining the sharp decline after mid-session.According to market sources, Jardine Fleming brokerage firm was rumoured to have sold huge chunks of SBI and HLL which reflected in the sharp decline of the indices. However, the figures on institutional transactions released by NSE at the end of the day show that the FIIs were net buyers on the bourse.FIIs bought stocks worth Rs 22.62 crore on the NSE, while the local institutions placed buy orders to the tune of only Rs 15.20 crore.
