Mumbai: After ending at an all-time high at 6026.59 last Friday (Jan 2, 2004), the Sensex opened firm and rallied further during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Jan 5) on unabated buying by bull operators coupled with sustained purchases by foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened firm at 6050.48 as against last weekend close of 6026.59 and later spurted to a high at 6078.11 before being quoted at 6072.34 at 10:30 hours (IST).

The BSE barometer had risen to the historical high of 6150.69 during trading on February 14, 2000.

Bulls were seen creating fresh positions in a number of blue-chip stocks along with continued investments by FIIs for the past several days.

FIIs have made net purchases of Rs 1,106 crore in the first four sessions of last week.

Key counters like BHEL, Dr Reddy's Lab, HDFC Bank, HPCL, ICICI Bank, Infosys Tech, MTNL, SBI, ONGC, Tata Power, Tata Motor, Satyam Computers and ITC were quoted sharply up on heavy buying support.

PSU stocks hogged the limelight on heavy and sustained buying support by bulls as well as foreign funds.