The free fall of stock markets continued on Wednesday with sustained selling dragging the benchmark Sensex down by another 120 points to its seven-week low in extremely volatile trades.Ignoring the impressive quarterly results from tech bellwether Infosys Technologies, investors sold almost across the board, amid concerns over the slowdown in foreign fund inflows.While pharma and tech stocks led another fall on the bourses, selling was seen in power, technology, automobile, banking as well as metal stocks. Up 41 points in early trades, the 30-share Sensitive index (Sensex) ended with a loss of 120.13 points, or 1.93 per cent, at 6,102.74, its lowest close since 29 November 2004.From its recent high of 6,696.31 touched in intra-day trades on January 4, the benchmark index has lost 594 points. The broader 50-share NSE CNX Nifty index shed 38.45 points to end at 1,913.60, coming off its day’s high of 1,966.65.Investors’ wealth has also seen a massive depreciation in January so far. Market capitalisation declined by a whopping 10.83 per cent, or Rs 1,78,000 crore to Rs 14,65,618 crore since January 4 this year.The market displayed extreme volatility amid alternate bouts of buying and selling. “Encouraged by impressive quarterly results from Infosys, the market opened steady and rose in early trades. However, selling resumed around mid-morning, and the market declined steadily on sustained selling pressure in stocks,” said a BSE dealer.Brokers said selling pressure came in from institutional and retail investors. Despite the Infosys’ results, the market failed to retain its early gains as worries over the slowdown in foreign fund inflows, which topped a record $ 8.51 billion in 2004, weighed on sentiment. Liquidity in the market is drying up with selling by foreign funds.
