Thursday, January 12 2006 11:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark 30-share index (sensex) continued to move downwards and was quoted 71 points lower during morning trading today (Jan 12, 2006) on fresh selling pressure triggered by discouraging quarterly results announced by top heavyweights RIL and Infosys Tech.

Brokers said both the companies have come out with lower net profits for the third quarter of this fiscal.

RIL posted a lower net profit for the first time in the last ten quarters owing to planned shut down of its Jamnagar refinery while IT major Infosys Technologies' 30.58 per cent jump in net profits fell short of market expectations.

The sensex opened weak at 9,334.13 against yesterday's close of 9,445.30 and later dropped sharply to a low of 9,303.71 before being quoted at 9,374.09 at 10.30 am, down by 71.21 points from previous close.

Despite strong economic fundamentals and consistent and heavy FII inflows in the current month, operators and retail investors as well as mutual funds preferred to book profits at the prevailing higher price levels, they added.

However, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were believed to be buyers at the lower levels. FIIs have poured in a massive Rs 2,287.50 crore during last week.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram reiterated that reforms, though progressing slowly, were on course to push up economic growth and contain Government's deficits in the new year and assured that disinvestment of non-Navratna PSUs was on track.