Foreign funds sell $329.5 million worth of stocks during week

Foreign institutional investors (FII) were net sellers on every single day of the week, offloading equities worth $105.12 million on Monday, followed by $26.08 million, $83.38 million, $20.62 million and $94.29 million.

Investors have been edgy since last few months with the markets being largely range-bound in the wake of stubbornly high inflation and moderating growth.

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) hawkish stance and successive rate hikes has also kept traders cautious. The RBI had hiked the repo rate Thursday by 25 basis points -- the tenth hike in interest rates since March 2010.

The resultant was a net loss for the 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which slumped 2.18 percent or 398.01 points to 17,870.53 points during the weekly trade.

At the National Stock Exchange the 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty closed 2.17 percent lower on a weekly basis at 5,366.4 points.

The Sensex had lost 116.36 points in the previous week.

For the month, FIIs have been net buyers to the tune of $243.05 million, but were net sellers in May having sold off equities worth over $1.4 billion.

For 2011, till June 17, FIIs had net sold stocks worth $382.4 million.