Mumbai: The overnight rally was short lived and the sensex moved downwards after opening moderately down on the Stock Exchange today (Jun 17, 2004) due to selling pressure from retailers and operators during morning trading.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened weak at 4833.84 as against yesterday's (Jun 17, 2004) close of 4839.88 and later dropped further to a low of 4788.55 before being quoted at 4805.92 at 10.30 hrs (IST), a net fall of 33.96 points.

Brokers said retail investors and operators were seen booking profits at higher levels at the weekend.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) too have slowed down activity and reported net investments of a meager Rs 7.00 crore on Wednesday 16, 2004) after fairly good purchases of Rs 236 crore in the first two sessions.

Partly attributing the cautious approach by retail investors to heavy net sales by local mutual funds in the current month, brokers said retailers seemed to be unwilling to make any long-term commitments ahead of the Budget to be presented on July 8. Key counters like SBI, RIL, Tata Motor, Tisco, Ranbaxy, ONGC, MTNL, MUL, ITC, HPCL, ICICI Bank, Grasim, BHEL and Bajaj Auto were quoted substantially lower on selling pressure.