Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a promising note extending last weekend's gain in line with smart rally in heavyweights at opening session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Feb 16, 2004) following sustained buying by foreign funds and operators.

The BSE-30 share Sensitive Index resumed firm at 6025.85 as against last Friday's (Feb 13, 2004) close of 6011.66 and moved up further to a high of 6054.86 before being quoted at 6041.99 at 10:30 hours (IST).

Index-based shares like RIL, SBI, ITC, Bharti Tele, BHEL, Grasim, Hero Honda, Infosys Tech, L&T, Tata Motors and Tisco were quoted remarkably higher on good buying.

Pharma shares, large-caps as well as mid-caps, continued to be in good demand and attracted bargain hunters.

Banking and auto stocks also were in keen demand on institutional buying support.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who bought shares worth Rs 927 crore on the first four days of the last week, continued to give support to the market by picking up blue-chip stocks.