Mumbai: The Sensex opened weak and later dropped substantially in irregular movement during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Sep 22, 2004) on a fresh bout of selling by domestic mutual funds.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened marginally lower at 5600.21 as against yesterday's close of 5605.93 and later dropped sharply to 5572.63 at 10.30 am, down by 33.30 points.

Domestic Mutual Funds which reported net sales of Rs 114 crore in two sessions on September 17 and 20, were seen booking profits in a number of blue chip stocks at the prevailing attractive price levels, brokers said.

The market is driven by consistent FII inflows while local funds and retailers have availed the opportunity to book profits in key stocks, brokers added.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net purchases of Rs 200 crore on Monday.

Blue chip counters including RIL, Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog, ONGC, Infosys Tech, Grasim, HDFC, Hero Honda, Hindalco, ITC, Wipro, Tata Steel and Ranbaxy were quoted substantially lower on selling pressure.

ACC, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's, ICICI Bank and REL, however, showed moderate gains.