Mumbai: The sensex opened moderately lower and later dropped sharply in line with a fresh stocks slide during morning trading on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) here today (November 10) due to sustained sell-off by domestic funds and retail investors.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) which made heavy purchases of Rs 1,506 crore in the first four sessions of last week, were believed to be active and seen picking up shares of old economy counters.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened down at 4962.22 as against November 7 last Friday's (November 7) close of 4971.57 and later dropped sharply to a low at 4918.46 before being quoted at 4937.50 at 10.30 AM (IST).

Despite sustained net investments by FIIs that have been pumping funds in Indian bourses for the past several weeks, retail investors remained cautious and continued to book profits along with selling by local financial institutions, market sources said.

Key counters like ACC, Grasim, GACL, BHEL, HCL Tech, ICICI Bank, Infosys Tech, Ranbaxy Lab, RIL, Satyam Computers, Tata Motors, Tisco and Zee Telefilms were quoted substantially lower due to fresh selling pressure.

Among the top losers, Jaiprakash Ind was quoted down by 5.44 per cent, Info Ent by 3.29 per cent, GESCO by 3.02 per cent, Wipro by 2.65 per cent, Geometric Soft by 2.61 per cent, Visuals by 2.25 per cent and PNB BY 2.22 per cent.

However, Hind Zinc, Sterlite Optical, TN Petro, Balaji and Indorama were prominent gainers.

PTI