Mumbai: The market opened moderately higher and later rose past 5100-mark before coming under pressure during morning trading on the Stock Exchange (BSE) in Mumbai today (July 27, 2004) on buying support alternated by profit booking by operators.

Operators seemed to be cautious on indications of negative activity by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have reported positive inflow on July 26.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened better at 5087.66 as against yesterday's (July 27, 2004) close of 5075.88 and later crossed the 5100-mark to 5104.66 on short covering ahead of the expiry of July contract in futures and options on July 29.

However, it met with a strong resistance and dropped to a low of 5067.79 before being quoted at 5071.70 at 10.30 hrs (IST), as FIIs were reportedly seen selling in derivatives segment.

FIIs were believed to be churning their portfolios on the bourses but substantially slowed down activity in the past couple of months, reducing net purchases in this period.

The market discounted announcement of robust first quarter working results by Reliance Industries Ltd even as SBI reported a 17.6 per cent growth in the first quarter on reduced income of Rs 9,205.2 crore.

Key counters like SBI, ITC, BHEL, Dr Reddy's Lab, Grasim, GACL, HDFC Bank, HPCL, ITC and MUL were quoted moderate lower.

However, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, ICICI Bank, MTNL, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers and Wipro showed gains.Software sector attracted good buying interest following a smart rally on Wall Street last night (July 27, 2004).

The Nasdaq Composite Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up by 30.08 points and 123.22 points yesterday.