January 19: Brokers said the sentiment remained weak as it was the last session for the current settlement on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) made purchases in select counters like Telco, Reliance, Castrol and ITC. Domestic institutional investors preferred to stay away from any big purchases.

Sensex (BSE sensitive index) dropped from the day's high of 3298.49 to 3214.85 before closing at 3218.91, showing a net loss of 59.67 points from the previous close of 3278.58. The BSE-100 index lost 29.28 points to 1424.77 against the previous day's close of 1453.05. Sensex had gained by 70 points on Monday.

Scrips like Arvind Mills, Bajaj Auto, Colgate, Dabur, Dr Reddy, Glaxo, Grasim, ITC, Larsen, MTNL and Satyam remained subdued. Ashok Leyland, Cadbury, German Reme, Indian Hotels and Pentafour closed better. The volume of business was sharply up at Rs 1711.96 crore as compared to yesterday's turnover of Rs 1355.36 crore.

The total turnover onthe BOLT network stood at Rs 1723.62 crore. Pentafour Software posted highest turnover at Rs 356.36 crore, followed by ITC Rs 267.28 crore, Reliance Rs 84.21 crore and Telco Rs 83.58 crore. Other actively traded counters were Zee Telefilm (Rs 80.87 crore), Tata Tea (Rs 57.86 crore), Castrol (Rs 46.69 crore), Infosys Tech (Rs 30.71 crore), Glaxo (Rs 22.15 crore), Tisco (Rs 21.54 crore) and Wockhardt (Rs 19.57 crore).

On the NSE, share prices turned weak on the last day of the current settlement on profit-selling at higher level coupled with squaring up position and brought down the Nifty by 20.80 points. The total turnover stood at Rs 2,455.75 crore. The exchange witnessed 306 scrips advance, 748 scrips decline and 93 scrips remain unchanged while 62 securities had hit their price bands.