Mumbai: The SENSEX opened moderately lower and dipped further in line with downward movements in select heavyweighted counters at early stages on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on October 24 due to fresh selling by investors.

Domestic financial institutions were believed to be consistent seller in the top heavyweight Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) anticipating discouraging working results ahead of the company's board meeting on October 25.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened down at 2944.28 as against the October 23 close of 2948.96 and gradually moved downwards and was quoted at 2931.00 at 10:30 hours (IST).

Brokers said HLL would come out with its third quarter results on October 25, which are likely to be below market expectations in the light of unfavourable monsoon in many parts of the country this year.

Besides HLL, that has high weightage in the SENSEX, others like RIL, Infosys Technologies, Dr Reddy's Lab, ICICI Bank, ITC and few others were quoted moderately down on selling.

PTI