Mumbai: Late sell-off by domestic funds pared early gains in key counters and a few of them even ended with moderate losses pushing the SENSEX in negative territory on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on August 21 despite fresh buying by speculators and foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

The Unit Trust of India (UTI), which has been continuous seller in key stocks, reportedly was booking profits at the day's higher price levels while FIIs and local operators made selective purchases absorbing major chunk of sales.

FIIs were reportedly net buyers in Infosys Technologies and some second-line IT stocks. Speculators too made fresh commitments at lower price levels in several counters.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened weak at 3,083.82 but later turned better rising to the intra-day high at 3,109.91 on the back of increased FII activity. However, it later fell back and ended at 3,084.38 as against previous close of 3,089.58, netting a fractional loss of 5.20 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index eased by 1.64 points to 1558.08 from previous close of 1559.72.

PTI