Mumbai: The Sensex witnessed either-way movements after opening on a promising note, as investors turned cautious and pressed sales on indication of a hike in prices of petrol and diesel.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened firm at 5733.35 as against yesterday's (Oct 14, 2004) close of 5713.10 and later fluctuated irregularly in a range of 5739.71 and 5697.52 before being quoted at 5724.00 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Brokers said reports about a hike in petrol and diesel prices from October 16 turned the market cautious despite flow of encouraging quarterly results and consistent net purchases by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

Operators and retail investors were seen booking profits during morning trading anticipating a negative impact of the petrol price hike, decision on which is expected to be taken during the day.

FIIs reported net investments of Rs 232 crore in the first two days of the week.

Wipro was in the forefront scoring handsome gains on announcement of excellent working results. IT major Wipro beat the market expectations and posted a 79 per cent jump in net profits at Rs 411.70 crore and 44 per cent rise in revenue at Rs 1978.50 crore for the second quarter.

Tata Steel, Tata Power, SBI, RIL, L&T, ITC, Dr Reddy's and a few others were quoted remarkably higher.

However, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, Infosys Tech, Ranbaxy and Satyam Computers showed moderate falls.