Mumbai: The Sensex opened moderately higher and later witnessed narrow movements in line with a mixed trend in lacklustre activity during morning trading on the Stock Exchange today (Feb 23, 2004) on alternate bouts of buying and selling by retailers and operators.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5869.61 as against last Friday's (Feb 20, 2004) close of 5850.72 and later fluctuated in a small range between 5875.23 and 5836.94 before being quoted at 5836.94 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Investors seemed to have adopted a wait and watch policy in view of the impending general elections and preferred to book profits at higher levels in a bid to divert investments to primary market. Government is making public offers to sale its stake in select large companies.

Key stocks like SBI, Tisco, Tata Motor, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's Lab, Bharti Tele, Infosys Tech, Hero Honda, L&T, Tata Power and some others were quoted moderately higher.

However, ONGC, HPCL, HLL, RIL and ITC showed moderate falls due to selling pressure.

Though domestic mutual funds made sizeable sales along with retailers and operators during last week, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) remained net buyer after a temporary slow down in activity.

Mutual funds made a net sales of Rs 302 crore in the first four sessions during last while FIIs made heavy net investments of Rs 1,070 crore in the same period.