MUMBAI: Global cues, especially weak closing for the US markets on Thursday night, pulled the Indian markets down on Friday. After a lower opening the BSE sensex witnessed some recovery only to lose ground in late trades to close 415 points lower at 14,484. In the process, investors were poorer by Rs 94,000 crore with BSE's market capitalization now at Rs 47.3 lakh crore.

On Thursday, spooked by high unemployment rate and weak retail sales data, the Dow Jones Index on New York Stock Exchange had lost about 350 points. As a result, Asian markets too showed weak trends which in turn affected investor sentiment on Dalal Street.

After opening a little over 300 points lower, the sensex recovered some ground in early trades but then slid to end just a tad above its intra-day low of 14,438. Data showed it was the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) who were at the forefront of selling. Provisional institutional trading data on BSE showed FIIs had net sold stocks worth Rs 1,857 crore while domestic funds net bought Rs 485 crore.

Market players feel with FIIs again turning sellers, there could be more pain left for investors. In early trades Friday, Dow Jones Index was again trading 80 points (0.7%) lower, which, if closes lower, could affect investor sentiment on Monday.

The day's slide was led by sectors like real estate, IT and banking. Market players pointed out that it was rare that IT, and banking and realty sectors slid together. Usually any slide in banking and realty, which are highly sensitive to interest rate outlook, are cushioned by some buying interest in the technology sector stocks which are considered defensive sectors in a higher interest rate regime.

Market players said while banking and real estate stocks slid on fears of higher interest rate in India, investors sold IT stocks due to fears of a recession in the US, the largest market for the Indian software companies. On Friday, on the BSE, there were 1,626 laggards compared to 1,011 stocks which ended higher.

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