Mumbai: The market turned little bit volatile at morning session with the sensex moving sideways on alternate bouts of buying and selling on the last day of June contract on the Stock Exchange, (BSE) today (Jun 24, 2004).

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened better at 4656.81 as against yesterday's (Jun 23, 2004) close of 4644.00 and moved irregularly in a range between 4670.41 and 4629.64 before being quoted at 4647.15 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

According to market perception, operators were busy in squaring up their outstanding positions on the last day of Futures and Options (F&O) segment today, leading to two-way movement in share values.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who slowed down their activities, reportedly sold shares worth Rs 134 crore on Tuesday (Jun 22, 2004) while mutual funds also offloaded stocks worth Rs 101 crore on first two days of the week.

The market will remain sideways with negative bias as no positive news in sight and it has not still bottomed out, an analyst said, adding that no major buying is coming from institutional investors and hence retail investors are also waiting for the same.

Ranbaxy Laboratories suffered a fresh setback on news that the UK health authorities has sought compensation from Ranbaxy UK of around Rs 840 crore for overpricing for the supply of 'ranitidine', an anti-ulcer drug, from 1997 to 2000.

Index-based shares like RIL, Satyam Computer, Wipro, ITC, Infosys Tech, MUL, REL, Tata Motor, Tisco and SBI were quoted remarkably higher while Bharti Tele, ICICI Bank and MTNL showed falls.