Wednesday, March 30 2005 11:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar 30, 2005) opened moderately up after the overnight plunge by about 143 points and later fluctuated erratically in volatile trade at early stages of the session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on some buying support from investors.

The volatility was attributed to the approaching end of March contract in the Futures and Options (F&O).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened higher at 6371.40 as against yesterday's (Mar 29, 2005) close of 6367.86 and later moved in a range of 6397.77 and 6322.28 before being quoted at 6390.98 at 10:30 hrs (IST), up by 23.12 points.

Despite weak trend on Wall Street last night, the market is expected to stage a moderate recovery on the back of some buying support from operators and domestic funds.

Domestic mutual funds are likely make selective purchases in a bid to push up the net asset value of their unit at the end of the current fiscal, brokers said adding that operators will have to cover their short positions in derivatives ahead of the expiry of March contract on Thursday (Mar 24, 2005).

As per figures released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net investments of Rs 535.30 crore on March 28.

Market sources, however, said the purchases included their investments in PNB public issue.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index yesterday ended down by 79.95 points and 18.64 points respectively.