Mumbai: After opening on a promising note, the Sensex fluctuated irregularly in continued volatile activity during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Jan 21, 2004) even as Wipro announced encouraging Q3 performance.

The BSE Benchmark opened better at 5927.42 as against yesterday's close of 5922.11 and later rose to a high at 5948.01. Thereafter, it fell sharply to a low at 5871.10 before being quoted at 5929.77 at 10:30 hrs (IST).

Brokers attributed the reversal in trend to investors' cautious approach ahead of the interim Budget to be presented in the first week of February.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) that made meagre net investments of Rs 28 crore on Jan 19, not only have slowed down activity but also were heavy sellers in the futures and options segment in the past few sessions, brokers said.

FIIs were engaged in hedging activity and their sudden pull-out have sent warning signals to operators forcing them to unload positions heavily, they said, adding the market will remain volatile in the coming days.

Bharti Televenture hogged the limelight on excellent performance by the company.