Sensex down for third day, falls 184 pts

The BSE Sensex fell for the third day in a row on Thursday, down 184 points at 15,543.93 on foreign funds indulging in year-end selling in blue-chips such as RIL and Infosys, amid settlement of derivative contracts.

Trading was bearish on reports of fresh troubles for the lingering euro-zone debt crisis and selling by FIIs on the last day of December derivative contracts, brokers said.

The BSE 30-scrip index, which had lost 243 points in the last two trading session, fell another 183.92 points, or 1.17 per cent to 15,543.93. 24 index stocks declined.

The 50-scrip NSE index Nifty lost 59.55 points, or 1.27 per cent to 4,646.25.

Refinery, heavy engineering and realty sectors suffered major losses.

Reliance Industries dropped 3.47 per cent and Infosys by 1.34 per cent. The two carry around 20 per cent weight in Sensex. Besides, Maruti Suzuki dropped 3.96 per cent and Tata Power by 3.38 per cent.

Sensex has slumped 24 per cent so far this year, and brokers said it was headed for the second-largest annual loss in three decades.

Markets have been battered on investor concerns over high interest rates, inflation, slowing growth and the fall of the rupee to record low. Globally, euro-zone debt crisis and slowdown in major economies including the US kept investors wary of equities.

Today's decline happened despite food inflation falling to a six-year low of 0.42 per cent for the week ended December 17, prompting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to say that the overall inflation could fall to 6 per cent by March-end.

The oil and gas sector index lost 2.62 per cent, followed by capital goods - 2.39 per cent. Realty index fell by 1.66 per cent and power - 1.43 per cent.