Mumbai: After opening on a promising note, the SENSEX later met with a fresh resistance and moved down sharply in line with a marked setback in select stocks during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 21 on sustained selling pressure.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened moderately higher at 3655.26 as against the previous close of 3647.58 and later fell back sharply to a low of 3625.14 before being quoted at 3626.26 at 10:30 hours (IST).

Domestic funds and operators once again resorted to selling in a bid to book profits at higher levels at the start of the session.

PSU stocks HPCL, BHEL, MTNL, Neyveli Ignite, RCF, HMT, BPCL and some others bore the brunt of selling.

Other heavyweights like HLL, ITC, RIL, Telco, HDFC and HCL Tech were quoted substantially lower.

Brokers said speculators which have large positions in several counters preferred to book profits at the prevailing higher levels as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) slowed down their activity, only making a net investments of Rs 107 crore in first four sessions of last week.

Brokers termed the current slide as a healthy sign for the market and anticipated a turnaround at the 3,585-support level on expectations of increased investments by FIIs.

PTI