Sensex plunges by 94 points

MUMBAI, DEC 24: After the 163-point surge on Thursday, bulls beat a hasty retreat on Friday. Pivotals suffered a setback on the Bombay Stock Exchange BSE on all round selling pressure pushing down the Sensex by over 94 points. Speculators who had created large positions in the last couple of days resorted to heavy unloading.

Sensex opened higher at 4982.72 points but later met with strong resistance as prices dropped sharply and dipped to a low of 4845.77 before closing at 4874.73 with a net loss of 94.49 points or 1.90 per cent compared to the yesterday8217;s close of 4969.22. The BSE-100 index also dropped by 40.21 points to 2523.69 from the previous close of 2563.90.

Brokers said foreign funds showed only token presence by picking up shares of Digital Equipment and Wipro on the Christmas eve and forthcoming holidays. Domestic financial institutions had also become sellers at the higher levels with their activity very much restricted. Operators were unwilling to carryforward their long outstandingpositions anticipating absence of FIIs at least for a week till the beginning of new year in view of long holidays in major world markets.

In the specified group, SSI Ltd, Crisil and ABB were locked in the lower circuit filter after exhausting the daily price limit.