Tech sell-off rocks Dalal St, Sensex drops 3.57%

The Sensex ended the week sharply down by 3.57% as disappointing guidance from IT bellwether Infosys played havoc on the bourses and send the market into a tailspin at the weekend.

In the week to April 16, the Sensex crashed on the last day to end the week at 6,248.34 points as against the last weekend close of 6,479.54 points - a net fall of 231.20 points.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), which had slowed down activity, were believed to be heavy sellers in blue chip counters following a meltdown in global indices and muted Infosys guidance for the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Operators, too, resorted to across-the-board selling after the disappointing announcement.

FIIs reported a small net investment of Rs 138.20 crore in equity in the first three trading sessions, and domestic financial institutions made net purchases of Rs 107.21 crore in the same period before Friday's bloodbath.

The volume of business was extremely low in view of reduced participation from operators and retailers.

During the four-session week, volume on the BSE and the NSE dropped sharply to Rs 6,759 crore and Rs 14,094 crore, respectively, when compared with last week's turnover of Rs 9,984 crore and Rs 21,271 crore, respectively.