Dealers say with the market closing near the day's low after resisting selling pressure throughout the day, is a sign of weakness. Also, Friday being the last day of the current settlement on the BSE, selling pressure is expected to escalate. According to a dealer with a domestic broking house, the Sensex might go down further to around 4100 level before any buying starts. Also, the weakening of the rupee is another cause for concern for the market. According to an institutional dealer, the FIIs are also sitting on the sidelines and waiting for the currency to stabilise. According to Sebi figures for Wednesday, FII investment was just Rs 6 crore negative from a total turnover of Rs 174 crore. This is a considerable fall compared to the recent levels of Rs 700 crore to Rs 800 crore turnover by the foreign investors.

Infosys and Sterlite were the major losers with the latter closing with a loss of almost 15 per cent during the day. There were a number of rumours doing the rounds during the market hours, which affected the sentiment in Sterlite and the scrip closed Rs 119 lower on the BSE. Total turnover on the Sterlite counter was also high at 27 lakh shares.

Apart from Infosys, some other frontline stocks like Wipro, Silverline, SSI and DSQ Software also closed with significant loss.Values opened weak in the morning and remained dull in the first half. But the fall accelerated in the second half.

Among non-IT stocks, Reliance, HLL, ITC, Bhel, Tisco, L&T, Grasim, Gujarat Ambuja and ACC also remained under pressure and showed a negative close. The pharma stocks, however, managed to attract buying interest. Ranbaxy showed impressive rally, and gained more than 6 per cent. Dr Reddy, Parke Davis, Sun Pharma, and Cipla also gained. Meanwhile, the Sensex opened at 4232.21 points, touched a peak of 4279.51 points, and closed at 4207 points. The low for the day was 4204.41 points. The S&P CNX Nifty lost 13 points, and closed at 1319.35 points. The high for the day was 1339.40 points, and the low for the day was 1319 points.

The number of advances stood at 562, and the number of declines stood at 911. At the same time, 190 stocks remained unchanged. The trading volume stood at Rs 2669 crore on the BSE, and the same figure on the NSE stood at Rs 4087 crore. Meanwhile, stocks which gained more than 7.9 per cent were HDFC Bank, Mobile Tele, Denim Ent, Wellwin Ind, Wordwide Tele, Nahar Spg, Motherson Sumi, Hotel Leela, Alfa Laval, Nat Peroxide. Other gainers for the day were Ranbaxy, Alok Text, Top Cassettes, Fulford, Veronica Lab, Vision Tech, Mah Glass, Twinstar Soft. At the same time, stocks which dipped more than 7.9 per cent were Sterlite, Smithkline Cons, Visualsoft, Zenith Info, Blue Dart, Sawca Com, Kaashyap Rad, Fortune Info, VJIL, Sriven Multi, Mascon Global, Cybertech. Other losers for the day were DSQ Soft, Rolta, India Cements, HCL Tech, GV Films, Anco Com, Bilt, Hinduja Finance, Frontier Info, Polaris.