Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a promising note and later rose past 5,600-level in line with a fresh stocks upsurge during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Apr 1, 2004) on continued purchases by institutional investors.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened moderately higher at 5,599.12 as against yesterday's close of 5,590.60 and later rose to a high at 5,644.45 before being quoted at 5,641.58 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Reacting positively to an unexpected high economic growth rate of 10.4 per cent for the third quarter of 2003-04 and heavy FII (Foreign Institutional Investors) inflows in the first couple of sessions, operators and retailers were believed to be extending commitments in blue chip stocks.

FIIs, which have been net buyers for the past two weeks, reported net purchases of Rs 639 crore on Monday (Mar 29, 2004) and Tuesday (Mar 30, 2004).

A sharp rally in Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) shares was attributed to impressive rise by 7.69 per cent in the company's ADR on Wall Street last night.

Key counters like RIL, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, ITC, BHEL, HPCL, Bharti Tele, MTNL, Ranbaxy Lab, Wipro, SBI, Tata Power, Tisco, Tata Motors, Grasim, GACL, Dr Reddy's Lab, Hindalco and ICICI Bank were quoted remarkably higher.

Among the top gainers, Jindal Strip were quoted up by 7.51 per cent, MTNL by 5.69 per cent, Sterlite Optical by 5.52 per cent, CMC by 5.43 per cent, Syngenta by 4.95 per cent, UTI Bank by 4.94 per cent, HCL Info by 4.69 per cent and Raymond by 4.00 per cent.