Mumbai: The SENSEX opened firm showing signs of a rally in the latter part of the session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on January 17 on initial investors buying in bank and public sector unit (PSU) stocks.

The BSE sensitive index opened remarkably higher at 3,377.94 as against January 16 close of 3,373.52 and later rose to a high of 3,381.16 in a range-bound activity, before being quoted at 3,373.10 at 10.30 am (IST).

The activity is expected to pick up gradually with indication of increased investments by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), which have been net buyers since January 8 and have made net purchases of Rs 406 crore in the first three sessions of current week.

PSU stocks, particularly Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) remained in the forefront on strong possibility of attorney general Soli Sorabjee giving his opinion on privatisation of oil PSUs – HPCL and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) – on January 20 after going through the clarification he had sought from Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie.

Besides HPCL, key stocks like SBI, RIL, ICICI Bank, L&T, ITC, Telco and Tisco were quoted moderately up.

However, IT stocks turned weak on selling induced by discouraging Q3 results by Wipro.

PTI