Mumbai: The market snapped four-session winning streak and ended in the negative territory as equities met with strong resistance with many of them giving up part of their overnight gains in irregular movements on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 1 on profit booking by local funds.

However, BHEL, BSES, Castrol, Glaxo, Infosys Tech, Telco and Ranbaxy Lab recorded handsome gains on fresh purchases by speculators as well as foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

Starting on a promising note at 3,617.74, the BSE benchmark 30-share index later fluctuated erratically in a narrow range between 3,622.89 and 3,584.73 before ending at 3,604.43 as against June 30 close of 3,607.13, a net loss of 2.70 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index finished fractionally down at 1,818.82 from previous close of 1,819.36.

Despite consistent net investments by foreign funds that have made net purchases of Rs 637 crore during last week, brokers said stocks met with resistance as domestic mutual funds led by the Unit Trust of India (UTI) booked profits in several index-based stocks at the prevailing higher levels.

The slide was seen as a technical correction as the sensex has gained sharply in the last four weeks on sustained net investments by FIIs till date. FIIs have made net purchases of Rs 2,461 crore in June alone taking the total net investments to Rs 6,047 crore in the six months.

Brokers also attributed slow down in FII activity to selling pressure by local funds and anticipated that the market might rally after a correction of about 100 points.

PTI