Mumbai: After a sharp overnight rally, frontline IT shares suffered a setback, almost preventing the SENSEX's upward march on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 11 as a result of heavy selling by domestic funds.

The resistance was also seen in a number of old-economy counters as speculators too preferred to book profits at the prevailing higher levels.

After showing signs of a fresh upsurge during morning session, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index that had risen to the day's high at 3714.84, later fluctuated in a narrow range of 3714.84 and 3659.21 before ending at 3676.26 as against the July 10 close of 3679.63, a net fall of 3.37 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index closed fractionally lower at 1852.46 from previous close of 1852.61.

Infosys Technologies, HCL Tech, Satyam Computers, Wipro and some others that witnessed a strong rally on July 10, fell substantially on profit booking by local mutual funds.

Old-economy stocks including heavyweights like RIL, ITC, Grasim Ind and ACC also finish with marked falls.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) that made net investments of Rs 551 crore in the first three sessions, were believed to have been heavy buyers in Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) and Tisco, besides a few others.

Though late sell-off by domestic funds resulted in a sharp reaction in old- economy counters, select index-based shares like Bajaj Auto, BSES, Cipla, Colgate, HDFC, HPCL, HLL, ICICI Bank, MTNL, SBI, Tisco and Zee Tele recorded moderate gains aiding SENSEX mitigate the slide.

PTI