Mumbai: After opening on a promising note, the sensex witnessed erratic movements in fairly volatile activity during morning trading on the Stock Exchange in Mumbai today (Sep 14, 2004) on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) seemed to be selective buyers at the early stages of the session while domestic mutual funds reportedly booked profits in blue chip counters, brokers said.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened moderately higher at 5409.52 as against yesterday's (Sep 13, 2004) close of 5397.46 and later fluctuated in a range of 5417.92 and 5376.04 before being quoted at 5401.84 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

FIIs which reported net purchases of Rs 140 crore on last Friday, were net buyers to the tune of Rs 900 crore in the last nine sessions.

FIIs, which were believed to be engaged in churning their portfolios for the past several sessions, were seen making purchases in a few blue chip counters, brokers said.

Maruti Udyog continued its downward march and was quoted sharply down after Morgan Stanley cut its ratings on the company to equal from overweight.

BHEL, Cipla, Grasim, HPCL, ICICI Bank, Infosys Tech, ONGC, Ranbaxy and Zee Telefilms were quoted remarkably up on fresh buying support.

However, ITC, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, SBI, Hero Honda, and Tisco showed marked losses.