Mumbai, Feb. 23: The stock markets were a picture in red as investors pressed sales across counters to amass cash to pour into mega public issues. This sent the sensex crashing by 153 points.

Retailers were heavy sellers in the derivatives segment ahead of the expiry of the February contract on Thursday.

Extending its losses to the fourth straight session, the BSE sensex, which initially rose to the day’s high of 5875.23, gradually moved downward to close at 5698.04 against Friday’s close of 5850.72, a huge loss of 152.68 points or 2.61 per cent.

“Investors want to divert funds to the primary market that has become the focus of attention in view of mega public issues,” brokers said.

Foreign institutional investors remained the main drivers, having made net investments of Rs 1,070 crore in the first four sessions of last week.

CMC shines, IBP falters

The public offering of shares in CMC and IBP took off today. The bidding showed a divergent trend with CMC being oversubscribed by two times. However, IBP disappointed with a poor response as investors placed bids for 30,870 shares against the 57.58 lakh shares on offer.

According to the National Stock Exchange, CMC received bids for over 76.98 lakh shares as against the government's offer of over 39.76 lakh shares.

In both these cases, the maximum response came for the floor price of Rs 475 and Rs 620 respectively.

Stabilisation fund

The market stabilisation fund, being set up to mop up surplus liquidity from the system, will have a ceiling of Rs 60,000 crore and bonds or bills for the same would be issued over a one-year period. The government will announce the scheme in a week’s time.