FIIs, however, were reportedly made purchases, albeit in small quantity, in pharma scrips like Glaxo, Novartis, Dr Reddy's Lab, Ranbaxy, Nestle and German Remedies besides Bajaj Auto and Ashok Leyland. Local institutions picked up small lots of shares of key scrips like SBI, L&T and Tisco.

Operators preferred to keep away from making large commitments but did buy/sell business to book profits in shares which rose during the session.

The BSE sensitive index opened fractionally down at 2814.93 and showed fluctuation of 25 points moving in a range of 2820.93 and 2796.22, before closing at 2804.46 as against yesterday's close of 2816.59, netting a fall of 12.13 points.

The BSE-100 index eased by 5.55 points to 1250.33 from previous close of1255.88.

Dealers said the news that the board of ACC would be meeting to consider right issue and sub-division of the existing equity shares also affected the sentiment.

They were not sure whether the market will witness some support from operators on the last day of the current settlement tomorrow.

Market sources said operators were confused and avoided to risk their money as local institutions seemed to be very cautious and FIIs are expected to turn sellers for the first fortnight of the current month in the light of approaching year-end.

The BSE-200 and the dollex were quoted fractionally down at 291.08 and 113.90 compared with previous close of 292.25 and 114.30 respectively.

The volume of business was very low at Rs 675.02 crore as compared to yesterday's turnover of Rs 837.80 crore.

Satyam Computer was the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs 148.73 crore followed by ITC (Rs 85.34 crore), SBI (Rs.49.44 crore), Zee Telefilms (Rs 44.65 crore) and ACC (Rs 43.02 crore).

The market leaderSatyam Computer dipped by 8.25 to 504.50. ITC eased by 2.50 to 672.25, SBI by 1.60 to 151, Zee Telefilms by 4.25 to 579.50 and ACC by 71.25 to 827.25.