MUMBAI, Jan 11: After a bullish spell, pivotals on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) dropped today on emergence of profit-taking coupled with selling pressure by domestic financial institutions. Sensex which crossed the 3500 mark during the mid-session crashed later due to selling pressure but still closed with a gain of 35 points.Trading commenced on a bullish note and Sensex (BSE sensitive index) started sharply higher at 3502.48 and immediately zoomed to touch the day's high of 3515.49. However, on increased selling pressure thereafter, Sensex dropped to 3418.24 before closing at 3433.21, showing a gain of 35.37 points compared to the Friday's level of 3397.84. The BSE-100 index moved up further by 24.23 points to 1533.54 from the previous level of 1509.31.Brokers said foreign funds played a major role in the market right from the beginning. The domestic investors, on the other hand, operated mainly on the selling counters by mid-session and sold heavily thus weakening the sentiment towards the end.The volume of business had risen substantially due to sustained FII purchases prompting other operators including local institutions to sell shares. The turnover surpassed the last Friday's high of Rs 2048.81 crore and posted a new record of Rs 2374.95 crore. On the NSE, prices of select shares turned weak on profit-taking while a large number of other shares rose further on increased buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic funds. The S&P CNX Nifty opened higher at 1005.15, but eased towards the fag-end and closed at 985.60, showing a small fall of 4.45 over the last close of 990.05.
