Our Markets Bureau

Mumbai, April 11: LED by Infosys Technologies, software stocks tumbled on Wednesday with the BSE Sensex hitting its 2-year low. Selling pressure, especially from FIIs, led the benchmark index fall by 122 points as most of the technology stocks hit the lower circuit. Tech and media stocks like Wipro, SSi and Zee also plummeted at the bourses.

On the backdrop of slower growth announcement by Infosys, FIIs and other institutional investors went on a selling spree in all the tech stocks. Even significant gains in the Nasdaq and Dow Jones last night failed to lift the market sentiments. The Nasdaq and Dow Jones went up by 117 and 258 points respectively.

The World Bank report of a slowdown in the Indian software exports due to the US slowdown has unnerved the FIIs. The on-going controversy relating to the involvement of Ketan Parekh with various companies also affected the sentiment.

After opening slightly higher in the early trading hours, the BSE fell below the 3,300 level and reached a high of 3481.15 points before closing at 3336.43 points as against Tuesday’s close of 3458.39 points, a loss of 121.96 points or 3.53 per cent. The S&P CNX Nifty also went down 39.5 points to close at 1063.55 points against Tuesday’s close of 1103.05 points.