Our Bureau

Mumbai, Nov. 12 The markets continued to tank on Monday, weighed down by global market sentiment and fears that the US sub-prime issue may involve larger losses.

The Sensex closed 0.9 per cent lower on Monday, at 18737.27, after a high intra-day volatility of over 480 points. The Nifty closed 0.81 per cent lower, at 5617.10.

The markets opened lower, tailing the weak Asian markets.

“But buying support from institutions and positive cues from European markets pushed the Sensex upwards in the later part of the day,” said Ms Anita Gandhi, Head of Institutional Business, Arihant Capital markets. “Basically, disappointing numbers from the US, the sub-prime problem and weak global cues affected our markets today,” said Mr Sanjay Someshwar, Sub-Broker, Ventura Securities.

The Index of Industrial Production numbers were also quite disappointing, which pushed the markets down by 400 points during the day, he said.

Except for the FMCG, power and PSU indices, every other BSE index closed in the red. “When the markets were soaring, FMCG fetched very low valuations. There is now some investor interest during the festival season in this defensive sector,” said Ms Gandhi.

FIIs were provisionally net sellers for Rs 1,194 crore on both BSE and NSE, while domestic institutions were net buyers for Rs 66 crore.

Declines, at 1,699 stocks on BSE (or 61 per cent), outnumbered advances, at 1,015.

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