Mumbai: Led by auto shares, prices rose further at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Sep 6, 2004) and the Sensex ended in positive territory for the second successive session at 5246.23, up by 27.77 points, due to sustained buying by operators on the back of fairly good purchases from institutional investors.

Auto and auto ancillaries stocks got a boost on reports of increased exports of leading majors Tata Motors and Maruti Udyog, dealers said and added that Tata Motor's total sales of vehicles, including exports, in August 2004 rose by 21 per cent to 30,113 units compared with the same month of the previous year.

Positive sentiment was also aided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assurance in the press conference on Saturday that economic reforms were to continue and that the Government would contain inflation, a broker commented.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly better at 5226.09 from last Friday's close of 5218.46 and remained in positive terrain through out the day to touch a high of 5264.87. Finally, it ended at 5246.23, up by 0.53 per cent.

Besides auto counters, other index-based shares like RIL, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hindalco, Tisco, Satyam Computer, Ranbaxy and ONGC also contributed to the sensex rise.

Media giant Zee Telefilms attracted large-scale buying at initial stages on news that the company has bagged the telecast rights from Board of Control for Cricket of India (BCCI) for international and domestic cricket to be played for the next four years, but surrendered major parts of early gains towards closing on profit-selling.