Friday, May 13 2005 17:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: In lacklustre activity, the Sensex today (May 13, 2005) reacted moderately downwards by 5.28 points to close at 6451.54 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), on stray profit booking by operators on the back of renewed selling by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

Taking a cue from Wall Street, the market opened weak and remained in negative territory most of the day. But lower level buying by local mutual funds helped the index to prune early losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite index dipped by 110.77 points and 7.67 points respectively last night. South East Asian markets like Hang Seng dipped by 101.47 points, the Nikkei by 28.83 points and Singapore ST by 9.52 points at close today.

Operators remained cautious and refrained from doing any big deals in the absence of any encouraging factor on the last day of the week, a broker said.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index resumed lower at 6447.72 as against yesterday's close of 6456.82 and fell further to a low of 6418.78. Later, it recovered marginally on selective buying and after touching a high of 6463.14, ended at 6451.54, a small fall of 0.08 per cent.

Meanwhile, world crude oil prices fell sharply to $ 48.29 a barrel in after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but failed to impact positively on the market sentiment, a dealer said.

FIIs were net sellers during the last two days and sold equities worth Rs 271.90 crore, which also partly aided the downtrend, he added.