Mumbai: The Sensex resumed higher and was trapped in a narrow range with sideways movements in share values at opening session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Mar 17, 2004) on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened remarkably up at 5,545.83 as against yesterday's close of 5,525.09 and moved in a limited breadth of 5,556.74 and 5,510.67 before being quoted at 5,520.79 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Index-based counters like RIL, SBI, Tisco, L&T, BHEL, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Satyam Computers and few others were quoted higher on fresh buying support while Dr Reddy, Grasim, GDFC, HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, HLL, HPCL, ITC, ONGC, Ranbaxy were quoted lower on profit-selling.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose by 81.78 points and 3.88 points respectively last night. Southeast Asian markets also opened on a firm note today.

Surprisingly, when the market crashed on Monday (Mar 15, 2004) by nearly 180 points, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and local funds were net buyers on the same day.

Among major gainers, FACT was quoted up by 17.62 per cent, IndusInd Bank by 8.15 per cent, GMDC by 6.28 per cent, Bombay Dyeing by 5.81 per cent, Federal Bank by 5.59 per cent, PNB by 5.50 per cent, Mphasis BFL by 5.08 per cent, Welspun Gujarat by 3.87 per cent, CESC by 3.24 per cent and Orchid by 2.90 per cent.

However, CCI was down by 5.32 per cent, CMC by 4.48 per cent, IBP by 3.88 per cent, Jaiprakash Ind by 2.79 per cent and HLL by 2.62 per cent.