Monday, March 21 2005 11:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar 21, 2005) came under pressure after opening on a promising note, fluctuating erratically in volatile trade during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened moderately up at 6716.41 as against last Friday's (Mar 18, 2005) close of 6700.34 and later firmed up to a high of 6734.72 on some initial buying support.

However, it fell back later due to fresh selling pressure to 6678.32 before being quoted at 6699.10 at 10:30 hrs (IST).

The market is likely to remain under pressure following slowdown in Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) activity and the rising crude oil prices, brokers said adding, that in the long term, high oil prices pose a threat to economic growth.

World oil prices moved up marginally on March 18, a day after surging to fresh record high points nearing 58 Dollar in New York despite efforts of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at increasing supplies.

FIIs drastically slowed down activity during last week after making massive investment in February and first two weeks of March.

Operators and retail investors were seen booking profits at every rise at the prevailing market levels.