Belying hopes of a surge that would have taken it past the magical figure of 19,000 owing to good fundamentals, the stock market on Friday plunged close to 400 points under influence of Asian markets and profit booking by speculators. Overlooking the drop in inflation as also the impressive industrial performance, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) came down by 395.03 points to close the day at 18,419.04, a development many analysts described as “technical correction” of the overheated market.

The downtrend was further aided by below-than-expected second quarter results and forecasts of blue chip firm Infosys.

So much so that the slide did not stop even after blowing over of the political crisis, with both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi ruling out snap polls. Coinciding with the downtrend, finance minister P Chidambaram said to some extent speculators were taking advantage of the rise in the Sensex (with market growing close to 2,000 points in a matter of less than fifteen trading sessions) and hoped that “things will cool down”.