Mumbai: After a steady start, the SENSEX once again turned weak at early stages in an otherwise dull activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 16 on selective selling by speculators and retail investors.

Investors seemed to be very cautious and preferred to unload positions in the light of fluid political situation arising out of a major terrorist strike in Jammu on July 13 as well as continued weak trend in global markets.

The BSE sensitive index opened fractionally up at 3,279.50 as against a close of 3,278.71 on July 15 but later turned weak and dipped to a low of 3,255.96 before being quoted at 3,272.83 at 10:30 hours (IST).

Investors confidence was believed to have been badly shaken after the Dow Jones industrial average and the NASDAQ composite index dropped further sharply during the session on July 15. Later the Dow ended down by 45.34 points while the NASDAQ closed up by 9.12 points.

Commenting on foreign institutional investors’ (FII) activity, stocks brokers said that the market could improve on the consistent investment flow from FIIs.

PTI