The market is witnessing across-the-board selling on Monday and many pivotals have been impacted hard.

HCL Technologies (down 5.55% to Rs 149), Zee Telefilms (down 4.16% to Rs 81.80), Satyam Computer (down 3.92% to 219.40), Telco (down 3.50% to Rs 153), Reliance Industries (down 3.49% to Rs 272.65), Castrol (down 3.05% to Rs 193.60), DRL (down 2.99% to Rs 890.40), State Bank of India (down 2.30% to Rs 282.55) Infosys Technologies (down 2.08% to Rs 4,288.50) and Tisco (down 2.28% to Rs 152.40) were few stocks which witnessed huge selling pressure.

The BSE, itself, stood at 3,230.93, down 56.93 points.

Dealers say there's much squaring off of positions going on. Very few seem interested in holding positions.

For one thing, there's looming fear that a war will break out soon in West Asia as the US is beefing up presence in the Persian Gulf. UN inspectors will be submitting their report on Iraq's weapons programme to the UN Security Council in New York today and an US statement on its imminent approach to Iraq is expected on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Alliance Mutual Funds is selling heavily due to the fact that it is under tremendous redemption pressure following an announcement that the fund is closing down its Indian operations. As per market talk, the fund has been offloading primarily in Satyam Computer, Infosys Technologies, Reliance Industries, BPCL, NIIT and Hinduja TMT .

Alliance has been facing redemption pressure for quite some time now following its announcement that it will be shutting shop in India . It is believed that now even small investors are queuing up at the fund's door step to get back their money. Earlier, redemption pressure was coming from only large corporate investors. Alliance's total assets have fallen by 12.1% to Rs 3,371 crore (Rs 33.7 billion) in December 2002 from Rs 3,800 crore (Rs 38 billion) in October 2002.

Selling activity is also substantial from margin traders. In addition, some players were squaring off positions ahead of the expiry of the January 2003 futures contracts.

Among the few stocks that are upwardly bound today include MTNL (up 3.81% to Rs 88.50), Hero Honda (up 1.77% to Rs 241.05), HPCL (up 0.13% to Rs 301.80) and Gujarat Ambuja (up 0.22% to Rs 157.20) .