Mumbai: The Sensex opened moderately higher and later showed signs of a turnaround at early stages after a massive battering in the last three sessions on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Apr 30, 2004) on selective purchases by institutional investors.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 5674.76 as against yesterday's (Apr 29, 2004) close of 5668.43 and later advanced further to a high at 5693.20 before being quoted at 5659.01 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

The top heavyweight RIL was quoted remarkably higher on investors buying support prompted by the company's excellent performance for the last fiscal.

Brokers attributed the overnight sharp fall in RIL in which operators had built up heavy positions, to squaring up by operators at the last day of April contract in derivatives.

Domestic financial institutions were believed to be buyers in select index-based counters.

Index-based stocks like Bharti Tele, Cipla, HPCL, L&T, Infosys Tech, REL and Tata Motors also showed marked gains.

However, Tisco, ZEE Tele, SBI, ONGC, ITC, HLL, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto were quoted moderately lower.

However, IDBI, GMDC, Arvind Mill, Andhra Bank, P&G, VSNL and Indo-Gulf showed moderate losses.