Mumbai: Led by pharma shares, prices recovered smartly on the Bombay Stock Market on July 3 on emergence of heavy buying by bull operators along with foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and closed with sharp gains, pushing the SENSEX up by an impressive 38.50 points.

The market opened on a firm note and continued to rally and apart from pharma shares, scrips belonging to IT sector as well old economy also rallied on heavy support.

The rally in pharma shares was spearheaded by Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy and Cipla.

Bull operators were also active in buying some of the heavy-weighted stocks like Infosys Technologies, Satyam Comp, HCL Tel, RIL, HLL and Grasim.

The sentiment was also boosted up by sharp rise in the Dow Jones industrial average and NASDAQ composite index, which closed higher by 96.85 points and 32.5 points respectively.

The total turnover rose further smartly to Rs 1,804.28 crores from July 2 level of Rs 1,429.13.

Infosys Tech was on top with a turnover of Rs 232.12 cr, followed by Satyam Comp Rs 116.94 cr, Reliance Rs 101.12 cr, SBI Rs 83.73 cr and Bank of Baroda Rs 67.39 cr.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened higher at 3,616.98 and rose further smartly to close at 3,639.89, showing a smart rise of 38.50 points over the previous close of 3,601.39.

PTI