Mumbai: The Sensex opened weak and moved further lower during morning trading in scrip-specific activity on the Stock Exchange in Mumbai today (November 19) on selling pressure induced by Monday's (November 17) Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) net sales position.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened sharply lower at 4868.43 as against yesterday's close of 4891.13 and later dropped further to a low at 4835.40 before being quoted at 4848.02 at 10.30 AM (IST).

Stocks continued their slide, as speculators preferred to reduce positions, discouraged by net sales of Rs 20 crore on Monday, after slowing down activity during last week.

FIIs investments had soared to the record mark in the year, driving the market sharply higher in the year.

Investors seemed to be taking every precaution ahead of the year-end when FIIs are generally expected to turn sellers in a bid to book profits, market sources said.

The sentiment was also affected by weak trend on Wall Street last night. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down by 87 points and the NASDAQ Composite Index dipped by about 28 points yesterday.

Key counters including heavyweights like Bajaj Auto, Zee Telefilms, Tisco, Tata Motor, SBI, Satyam Computers, Infosys Tech, ITC, HLL, HPCL, Grasim and Dr Reddy's Lab were quoted lower on fresh selling.

Among the top losers, Indorama were quoted down by 4.66 per cent, E-Serve by 4.56 per cent, ICICI Bank by 3.98 per cent, Hind Zinc by 3.84 per cent, Indian Rayon by 3.71 per cent, Sterlite Optical by 3.12 per cent, GMDC by 3.10 per cent and SCI by 3.08 per cent.

PTI