FIIs also pressed sales in ACC, Ashok Leyland, Dr Reddy's Laboratoriesand Bajaj Auto. on the other hand, domestic financial institutions were nominal players in the market. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) sold 237360 shares of Piramal Holdings in response to an open offer made by a finance company.

Brokers said the Centre's back-tracking on the insurance regulatory authority (IRA) Bill and a possible dilution of foreign stake in private insurance ventures also impacted sentiments as FIIs perceived the move as a slowdown in the process of economic reforms. The BSE-100 index fellby 5.55 points to 1250.33 from the previous close of 1255.88. The BSE-200 shed 1.17 points to close at 291.08 from earlier closing of 292.25. The dollex eased by 0.40 points to 113.90 against the last closing of 114.30.

The total turnover on the Bolt network was Rs 675.91 crore from trading in 3.01 crore shares. Satyam Computers topped the turnover list with Rs 148.73 crore followed by ITC (Rs 85.34 crore), State Bank of India (Rs 49.44 crore), Zee Telefilms (Rs 44.65 crore), ACC (Rs 43.02 crore) and Pentafour Software (Rs 37.50 crore). Among the other actively traded scrips on the stock exchange were Reliance, Tata Steel, TELCO, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Castrol, Tata Tea, Bajaj Auto, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam and Larsen & Toubro.