Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a better note and continued its upward journey driven by fresh buying by operators during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in Mumbai today (Dec 22, 2003), on the back of sustained purchases by foreign institutional investors (FII) and domestic mutual funds.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened moderately higher at 5547.68 as against last Friday's close of 5541.35 and later rose to a high at 5575.70 before being quoted at 5570.45 at 10:30 hours (IST).

The market seemed to be driven by hectic buying support by operators, which have started covering short positions in the Futures and Options, ahead of expiry of December contract on Wednesday (Dec 24) in the light of a holiday on Thursday, December 25.

FIIs, who remained consistent net buyers to the tune of Rs 873 crore in the first four sessions of last week as well as increased net purchases of Rs 311 crore by local mutual funds in the same period, were the main source of encouragement for operators and retail investors.

Key stocks like ACC, HDFC, HLL, HPCL, ICICI Bank, RIL and SBI were major gainers at early stages.

However, L&T, ONGC, Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computers and a few others showed moderate losses.

Among the top gainers, Sterlite Biotech were quoted up by 12.12 per cent, Dredging Corporation by 11.64 per cent, MIRC by 9.24 per cent, National Fertilisers by 8.60 per cent, Kotak Bank by 7.54 per cent, Sterlite by 5.13 per cent, Videocon International by 4.51 per cent and Tata Chemicals by 4.13 per cent.

PTI