Mumbai: The Sensex opened moderately higher and later was trapped in a small range of about thirty points during morning trading at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Oct 29, 2004) as investors turned cautious ahead of announcements of quarterly results by key corporates during the day.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5724.46 as against yesterday's close of 5715.62 and later moved in a narrow range of 5731.35 and 5700.78 before being quoted at 5728.12 at 10.30 a.m., up by 12.50 points.

Despite a sharp fall in crude oil prices below $ 51 a barrel in New York, operators and retail investors adopted a wait and watch policy before announcements of quarterly results by old economy heavyweights Tata Steel and Tata Motors during the day.

Meanwhile, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net investments of Rs 71.70 crore on Wednesday, taking the total net purchases to Rs 239.70 crore in the first three sessions of the week.

Blue chip counters including Tata Motors, ONGC, Maruti Udyog, ICICI Bank, HPCL, HDFC, Dr Reddy's, Cipla, BHEL and Bajaj Auto were quoted remarkably higher on fresh buying support.

However, Tata Steel, RIL, Satyam Computers, Wipro, L&T, Infosys Tech, Hindalco, Grasim and Hero Honda showed moderate losses due to selling pressure.