Mumbai: The sensex opened moderately lower and later witnessed irregular movements during morning trading on the stock exchange today (May 27, 2004) on alternate bouts of buying and selling in lieu of the last day of derivatives segment.

Operators were seen squaring up their positions in view of the last day of May contract in the Futures & Options.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened lower at 5045.45 as against yesterday's (May 26, 2004) close of 5081.95 and later fluctuated erratically in a range of 5076.72 and 5019.39 before being quoted at 5035.58 at 10.30 hrs (IST), down by 41.14 points.

Index-based shares like RIL, SBI, Tata Motors, MUL, ONGC, BHEL, Dr Reddy, Grasim, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, Hindalco, HPCL and Tisco showed marked falls on selling pressure.

Investors were also eager to know the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) to be announced by Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government this afternoon, brokers said.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) once again reported net sales of Rs 130 crore on Tuesday after making a meagre net investments on Monday.