Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a steady note and later moved in a narrow range in line with lackluster activity during morning trading on the Stock Exchange today (Jun 29, 2004) on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened fractionally up at 4838.74 as against yesterday's (Jun 28, 2004) close of 4837.60 and later fluctuated in a range of 4838.74 and 4808.70 before being quoted at 4834.74 at 10.30 hrs (IST), a net fall of 2.86 points.

The market met with a moderate resistance immediately after resumption of trading as investors pressed sales in select heavyweighted counters. Retail investors were believed to be booking profits at the prevailing higher price levels, brokers said.

However, the market is expected to pick up during the latter part of the session in response to FIIs positive inflow on June 24 and 25 as well as fairly good net purchases by domestic mutual funds last Friday (Jun 18, 2004).

FIIs reported net investments of Rs 72 crore on June 24 and 25 while local mutual funds made net purchases of Rs 65 crore on Friday.

RIL, Satyam Computers, Tisco, Tata Motors, ITC, SBI, BHEL Grasim, Bharti Tele, Hindalco and Tata Power were quoted moderately lower on selling pressure.

However, Cipla, HDFC, HPCL, ONGC, Ranbaxy and REL showed moderate gains on buying support.