Mumbai: The Sensex recovered smartly its overnight losses and even rallied further in line with sharp upsurge in most of the heavyweight counters at opening session on the stock exchange today (May 4, 2004) on all-round buying support.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened remarkably higher at 5616.41 as against yesterday's (May 3, 2004) close of 5584.99 and moved up further to a high of 5677.11 before being quoted at 5673.65 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Under the leadership of SBI, recently battered banking shares were at the forefront on renewed buying by operators as well as institutional investors following news that most of the commercial banks have drastically brought down their Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in 2003-04.

Software shares, particularly exporters, also attracted good buying due to appreciation in US Dollar, which could impact positively on these companies bottom lines.

Heavyweight stocks like RIL, Infosys Tech, ONGC, Ranbaxy, L&T, Tisco, Tata Motors, Satyam Computers, Grasim, Hindalco and HPCL were quoted sharply higher institutional buying.

Local funds were believed to be giving support to select index-based counters.

However, CCI, TVS Motor, Alfa Laval, ITC and ICCI Bank were quoted moderately lower.