Mumbai: After the initial hesitancy, share prices were driven higher and the Sensex ended up by another 63 points as operators made hectic purchases despite negative activity by institutional investors.

Overcoming early resistance, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index later rallied smartly to the intra-day high of 4961.32 before ending the day at 4951.17 as against yesterday's close of 4888.19, a net gain of 62.98 points or 1.29 per cent.

Despite withdrawal by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and net sales by local mutual funds in the past couple of sessions, operators stepped up activity in response to SEBI's (Securities and Exchange Board of India) move to settle the vexed issue of registration fee and revival of monsoon in some parts of the country.

SEBI has announced a regularisation scheme for the waiver of partial interest levied on stock brokers on the delayed payment of registration fee based on turnover.

The sentiment was also aided by reports of good rainfall in the last two days in some parts of the country.

The market was largely operator driven with speculators focusing their attention on old economy stocks, particularly steel counters which provide better returns at the prevailing price levels, brokers said.

FIIs reported net sales of Rs 62 crore in two sessions on July 13 and 14, while local mutual funds were net sellers to the tune of Rs 113 crore in the first three days of the week.

Heavyweighted counters like Tisco, SBI, RIL, Tata Motors, ITC, ICICI Bank, Grasim, BHEL, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers and ONGC recorded remarkable gains.