Mumbai: The SENSEX opened better and later rallied smartly on the back of a consistent upsurge in share values during morning session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on February 15 on fresh buying prompted by encouraging reforms news and increased FII activity over the past few days.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened on a better note at 3560.98 as against February 14 close of 3557.06 and later spurted to a high of 3593.73 before being quoted at 3585.35 at 10:45 hours (IST).

Speculators were believed to be in an upbeat mood in view of steps taken by the government to speed up economic reforms by putting privatisation process of Public Sector Units (PSUs) on a fast tract and heavy investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) which made net purchases of Rs 233 crore on February 13 taking the total net investments to Rs 756 crore since February 6 after being heavy sellers in the second half of January 2002.

PTI