India-West-Home Mumbai: The SENSEX crossed 4100-mark and headed towards the anticipated 4200-resistance during morning trading in line with unabated stocks rally at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on August 22 on sustained buying by operators on the back of increased purchases by foreign funds.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened sharply up at 4146.56 as against August 21 close of 4095.39 and later moved in a range between 4149.54 and 4114.45 before being quoted at 4132.46 at 10.40 a m.

Brokers, however, attributed the higher opening rate of the SENSEX to erroneous entry of ITC opening rate at Rs 877 as against yesterday's (Aug 21) close of 784.70. Later, ITC was quoted at Rs 795.00 at 10.30 am.

Speculators were reportedly seen continuously enlarging their positions in several blue-chip counters following increased FII activity. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have made a net investments of Rs 463 crore in the first three sessions, brokers said.

Cement stocks like ACC, Grasim, GACL as well as other old economy shares like RIL, SBI, Tisco, MTNL, L&T, Dr Reddy's Lab, CIPLA, Ranbaxy, ITC and HDFC were quoted remarkably up.

Among the top gainers, Kotak Bank were quoted up by 4.66 per cent, SAIL by 3.90 per cent, MTNL by 3.88 per cent, HOEC by 3.46 per cent, Bayer Crop by 3.39 per cent, Finolex Ind by 3.15 per cent, Bharati Tele by 3.08 per cent and Hughes Soft by 3.06 per cent.

However, IDBI Bank, Guj Gas, Silverline, TN Newsprint, Hind Zinc and MRF showed losses.

PTI