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BSE tumbles 85 points

Dancing to the tune of Asian stock markets, share prices crashed on both the Bombay and National stock exchanges following heavy bull liquidation by bull operators and foreign institutional investors.

The BSE sensitive index tumbled by about 85 points to close below the psychological barrier of 3,600 mark at 3598.16. The NSE-50 nifty index also fell sharply by 22.45 points to 1057.75 in a volatile trading.

According to market sources, sentiments on the BSE and NSE were affected badly due to the record crash in share prices in Asian stock markets and the subsequent fall in their currencies.

''FIIs have lost heavily because of the fall," a leading BSE broker said, "They are now worried about their prospective investment plans.''

Reports say most Asian stock markets fell Wednesday as several southeast Asian currencies crashed to new lows. While Hong Kong's main market index plunged by six per cent, indices in Japan and South Korea rose slightly.

Reflecting the trend, the BSE sensitive index opened at 3671.69, touched the day's high of 3679.14 in the morning session, and suddenly fell to its low of 3598.16 where it remained till the close. It netted a loss of 85.15 points over the previous close of 3683.31 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index dropped by 38.59 points to 1567.46 over the previous close of 1606.05 points.

Similarly, the BSE-200 and dollex indices closed lower by 8.47 and 3.86 points to 351.86 and 147.75 over the previous close of 360.33 and 151.61 points respectively.

Leading brokers said the domestic institutional investors tried to support the falling share prices and made moderate purchases in some fundamentally strong scrips.

The total turnover reported during the day was Rs 9.47 billion.

Tobacco giant ITC continued its top position by registering the highest turnover of Rs 2.79 billion. It was followed by the SBI (Rs 1.25 billion), Tata Tea (Rs 1.12 billion), Reliance (Rs 742.4 million) and Castrol (Rs 655.4 million).

Hectic activity was witnessed at L&T (Rs 263.6 million), Hind Lever (Rs 195.8 million), Telco (Rs 154.3 million), ICICI (Rs 104.6 million), BHEL (Rs 98.7 million), ACC (Rs 93.7 million), MTNL (Rs 64 million) and Bajaj Auto (Rs 59.6 million).

Good transactions were also reported at select counters in B1 group like Corporation, Bata India, Reliance Pet, Raasi Cement, Infosys Tech, Novartis Ind, Tata Infotec, Cyanamid, Pun Tractor, Ingersoll, LML Ltd, United Brew, Wiproi and Vashist Det.

UNI