Mumbai: The SENSEX opened on a promising note but later was trapped in a narrow range, generally moving southwards at early stages on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 17 on fresh selling pressure from investors.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened moderately up at 3,232.39 as against the previous close of 3,229.18 and later fluctuated in range of 3,232.68 and 3,212.86 before being quoted at 3,216.76 at 10.30 am.

Investors seemed to be depressed due to continued adverse reports about monsoon that has caused considerable concern in the market on fears that the unfavourable rainfall would affect the country's economy, stock brokers said.

The gloom in the world markets that have shown consistent slide in the past few sessions was also giving sleepless nights to investors, they added.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average that dropped for the seventh straight session was down by 166.08 points and the NASDAQ Composite Index finished in the negative territory.

South East Asian markets too were weak on July 17 morning with the Hang Seng substantially down by 167.87 points and the Nikkei by 86.70 points.

Reports that the Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had advised to cut the interest rate on employees' provident fund (EPF) from 9.5 per cent to 9 per cent with no mention about tax breaks too had partial impact on the sentiment.

PTI