Thursday, March 17 2005 11:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar17, 2005) opened weak and later witnessed narrow movements during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on fresh selling pressure caused by soaring international crude prices and negative activity by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) on Tuesday (Mar 15, 2005).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened sharply down at 6719.11 as against yesterday's (Mar 16, 2005) close of 6746.88 and later moved in a small range of 6737.29 and 6715.64 before being quoted at 6730.15 at 10:30 hrs (IST), down by 14.51 points.

Investors were seen booking profits at the current levels in the light of slowdown in FIIs activity and high crude oil prices as well as absence of any positive development that could trigger the market, brokers said.

Despite a pledge by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel to increase production, oil prices hit a record closing level of $ 56.46 a barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. The surge broke the record set last October of $ 55.67 a barrel.

FIIs reported net sales of Rs 46.10 crore on March 15, inducing domestic investors to continue their sell-off.

Meanwhile, shares of UTV Ltd on the first day of listing this morning, opened at Rs 165 and fluctuated in a small range of Rs 170 and Rs 155 during early stages of trade.

Blue chip counters like Tata Motors, Satyam Computers, RIL, ONGC, Maruti Udyog, HLL, HPCL, L&T, Hero Honda, HDFC Bank and Bharti Tele-Venture were quoted moderately down.