MUMBAI: Rising oil prices weighed on investor sentiment on Dalal Street for the third consecutive session that pulled sensex down by 1,000 points (1.3%) on Friday to close at 76,664 points. Foreign funds continued to sell aggressively, leading to a 2,609-point fall in the sensex in the last three sessions. The weakness of the rupee that fell against the dollar for the fifth consecutive session, also dampened investors’ sentiment, market players said. The sell-off also left investors poorer by nearly Rs 5 lakh crore with BSE’s market capitalisation now at Rs 461.5 lakh crore, official data showed.IT stocks were the worst hit, with BSE IT index closing 5.1% down. The strong selling in this sector was on the back of weak business forecasts from two of the sector leaders, Infosys and HCL Tech, post their quarterly results this week, analysts said.
