Friday, February 24 2006 11:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: After resuming on a slightly better note, the Bombay Stok Exchange's Sensex moved erratically during morning session on alternate bouts of buying and selling on the first day of March derivative contract.

The 30-share index opened firm at 10,256.74 as against yesterday's(Feb 23,20o6) close of 10,244.05 and moved sideways in a range between 10,271.67 and 10,212.30 before being quoted at 10,247.67 at 10.30 a.m., showing a small rise o 3.62 points.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) remained heavy buyers and reportedly injected over Rs 1720 crore in the last five sessions and Rs 5323 crore in the current month so far.

Analysts said that the volume might fall here till budget as operators and retail investors would be unwilling to make any fresh commitments.

Gainers among index-based were BHEL, L&T, Grasim, SBI, ICICI Bank, Infosys Tech ACC and REL while Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy, HDFC HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, HLL, ITC and Wipro were losers on profit-booking.

Meanwhile, the Reliance Energy Ventures Ltd (REVL) listed today(Feb 24,2006) on the BSE at 45.70 and moved in a range between 46.00 and 42.90 before being quoted at 44.00 at 10.30 a.m.