Tuesday, March 29 2005 11:17 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar 29, 2005) turned weak after a promising start and moved downwards during the morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on renewed selling pressure from operators amid slowdown in Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) inflows.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened marginally up at 6512.98 as against yesterday's (Mar 28, 2005) close of 6510.74 but later fell back substantially to a low of 6462.44 before being quoted at 6470.26 at 10:30 hrs (IST), down by 40.48 points.

Partly attributing fresh selling pressure to a powerful earthquake in western Indonesia, brokers said operators once again have turned cautious after the overnight rally in view of continued negative activity by foreign funds.

According to the figures released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), FIIs have reported net sales of Rs 131.20 crore on March 23 and net purchases of Rs 263.20 crore on March 24.

The net investments on March 24 include FIIs subscription of about Rs 550 crore in the Punjab National Bank public issue, brokers added.

A powerful earthquake on Indonesia's west coast yesterday reportedly sent a shudder of panic across the Indian Ocean about another killer Tsunami.

Meanwhile, oil prices dropped below $ 54 a barrel in Asian trade this morning.

Key counters including TIL, SBI, Tata Steel, Zee Tele, ONGC, ITC, Infosys Tech, ICICI Bank, Grasim, Dr Reddy's, Cipla and BHEL were quoted substantially down on fresh sell-off.