Sensex slips for fourth day

The Sensex ended in the negative zone for the fourth day in a row after exhibiting lacklustre movement on Thursday. Selling by overseas funds coupled with lack of buying interest by local funds weighed on the markets.

The BSE-30 share benchmark Sensex, which had lost 455 points, or 2.5% in the past four sessions, lost another 69 points at its close at 15,398 today. The index touched a low of 15,357, at fag end of the day, down 241 points from day's high touched during early trades.

In contrast to this recent fall, Sensex gained 7.5%, or 1,113 points during seven trading sessions before this fall.

The NSE Nifty settled at 4,593, down 14 points.

Foreign Instituitional Investors were net sellers of stocks worth Rs 688.31 crore on Wednesday, according to provisional reports on the BSE.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Oil & Gas index led the decline with a fall of 1.34% to 9,554.

INDEX SHAKERS. . .

Mahindra & Mahindra and Reliance shed 2.5% each to Rs 809 and Rs 1,971, respectively.

Tata Motors, Tata Power and ONGC declined 1.5% each to Rs 508, Rs 1,262 and Rs 1,138, respectively.

Bharti Airtel, NTPC and Larsen & Toubro slipped 1.5% each to Rs 406, Rs 204 and Rs 1,512, respectively.

Among the other losers, Sun Pharma, Hindalco, ITC, Hero Honda, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Wipro were down marginally.

Infosys and Tata Steel decreased 1% each to Rs 2,188 and Rs 420.

Among the Nifty stocks, HCL Technologies fell over 2% to Rs 303. Ranbaxy and Power Grid were down 2% each.

. . .AND THE MOVERS

Reliance Communications soared over 5.5% to a high of Rs 291 on the back of its revived plans of Reliance Infratel IPO.

Sterlite advanced 1.5% to Rs 645. Infosys and Tata Steel advanced 1% each to Rs 2,188 and Rs 420.

The Bombay Stock Exchange