Mumbai: Sustained buying in HLL and RIL (Reliance Industries Limited) helped the SENSEX to close in positive territory on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on October 30, though profit-taking at the fag-end trimmed early gains.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) giant, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) remained the bright spot notching sharp gains following good buying support at lower levels from domestic institutional investors.

Petro-chem major RIL also was in keen demand and rose smartly on foreign funds buying.

The market resumed on a firm note with the SENSEX opening at 2898.01 from yesterday's close of 2885.23 and touched a high of 2908.21. However, profit-booking at that level, washed out major part of initial gains and it closed at 2888.59, however showing a minor rise of 3.36 points.

The BSE-100 index improved further by 7.61 points to 1444.75 from previous close of 1437.14.

Meanwhile, the initial rally in oil majors due to a 78 per cent spurt in the net profit for the second quarter of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), was fizzled out at the fag end on offloading by local funds, market-men said.

Sharp to moderate fall in other index-based scrips like BHEL, BSES, Glaxo, HCL Techno, HDFC, ITC, Nestle, Ranbaxy, Zee Tele, Tisco and few others arrested the SENSEX rise to minimum level.

Meanwhile, software scrips exhibited a mixed trend on alternate bouts of buying and selling following a weak trend on the Nasdaq, where the Composite Index dropped by nearly 15 points on October 29 night.

PTI