Mumbai: The SENSEX opened firm and rallied past the crucial 4,000-mark for the first time in the last 29 months and thereafter moved erratically during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on August 19 on buying alternated by selling pressure from investors.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened strong at 3,985.77 as against August 18 close of 3,977.73 and later fluctuated in a range between 4,015.71 and 3,985.77 before being quoted at 4,002.96 at 10.30 am (IST).

Though investors' focus remained on old economy stocks, Information Technology (IT) counters too attracted fairly heavy buying support in response to a sharp rally on Wall Street on August 18 night.

Heavyweights like Tisco, Grasim, BHEL, GACL, HCL Tech, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, L&T and SBI were quoted remarkably higher on fresh buying support.

Brokers said the market is in the bull grip, but did not rule out heavy sell-off by domestic financial institutions at the higher price levels during the latter part of the session. However, they did not expect any major reaction at this stage.

Commenting on continuous upsurge in old economy stocks, brokers said second-line pharma shares are offering attractive investment opportunity and likely to witness rally shortly.

Among the top gainers, Chambla Fert were quoted up by 9.69 per cent, SAIL by 8.75 per cent, IDBI Bank by 7.89 per cent, Syndicate Bank by 5.98 per cent, Sonata Soft by 5.28 per cent, LML by 4.81 per cent, Pentamedia Gr by 4.81 per cent, Crompton Gr by 4.79 per cent and Tata Power by 4.08 per cent.

PTI