Mumbai: The sensex opened moderately higher and later improved further during morning trading on the Stock Exchange today (Mar 25, 2004) on fresh buying support from operators.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5403.38 as against yesterday's (Mar 24, 2004) close of 5395.28 and later advanced further to a high at 5432.90 before being quoted at 5426.10 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Brokers said that operators have started making commitments in cash segment for the past couple of sessions and the market is likely to witness short covering during the day on the last day of March contract in derivatives.

Operators and retailers seemed to be buoyed by heavy net investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) in the last few sessions. FIIs made net purchases of Rs 707 crore in the first two sessions of the week.

Key counters like RIL, SBI, Tisco, L&T, Infosys Tech, ITC, Grasim, GACL, BHEL and ACC were quoted remarkably higher.

However, HLL, Bajaj Auto, HPCL and a few others showed moderate falls on selling pressure.