Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a promising note and later moved upwards during morning trading in line with a fresh upsurge in old economy stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (April 19, 2004) on buying support from retail investors.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5875.53 as against last week's close of 5861.63 and later improved further to a high at 5895.17 before being quoted at 5893.12 at 10:30 hours (IST).

However, technology stocks met with moderate resistance after a sharp rally during last week. Infosys Technologies and Wipro were quoted moderately lower due to profit taking.

Key old economy counters like Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, ITC, L&T, MTNL, Ranbaxy, RIL, SBI and Tata Power showed remarkable gains on fresh buying support.

Bank shares attracted fairly heavy activity on sustained purchases by domestic mutual funds.