Funds bought,but Sensex still fell 1.73%

“Proprietary selling by brokers accounted for around Rs 108 crore on the BSE on Friday. This figure would be four times on the NSE. Obviously,some dealers tried to take advantage of the political issues relating to the telecom scam by floating various rumours about the government,” said BSE dealer Pawan Dharnidharka.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs),the big bulls who were driving up the stocks till recently,made net investments worth Rs 367 crore on Friday. Domestic institutions bought stocks worth Rs 300 crore. FIIs were sellers on Tuesday and Thursday. “One now has to see if FIIs continue to pull out money from India or will start buying at lower levels. One also has to closely follow the global cues,” IIFL head of research Amar Ambani said.

However,experts are calling the market fall a ‘buying opportunity’ for investors,but they also feel the steep fall over the past 10 days points to extremely negative sentiments prevailing in markets. “Since the fall began from 21,000 levels 10 days ago,the index has not breached its previous day high. Hence a relief rally could open only if the index breaks above 20,000,” Globe Capital Market Senior Research Analyst Nirav Vakharia said.

“Fundamentally,it is healthy that market has corrected to reasonable levels for fresh entry. Markets could continue a slide further but this would provide opportunity to enter on a selective basis,based on fundamentals,” Unicon Financial vice-president (PMS & Research) Madhumita Ghosh said.

The BSE Sensex declined 571.45 points or 2.84 per cent to 19,585.44 in the week ended last Friday. The S&P CNX Nifty fell 181.35 points or 2.98 per cent to 5,890.30. Meanwhile,there were renewed fears about high-deficit European nations such as Ireland,Portugal and Spain. Europe and China worries overshadowed hopes that measures by the US Federal Reserve to pump liquidity into the economy would lift asset prices.