Thursday, December 23 2004 12:46 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: After resuming on a slightly weak note, share prices staged a smart recovery during morning trading on the stock exchange today (Dec 23, 2004) on renewed buying by foreign funds.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened lower at 6410.30 as against yesterday's (Dec 22, 2004) close of 6413.66 and gradually moved up further to a high of 6447.40 before being quoted at 6433.19 at 10.35 am, up by 20.13 points.

Reliance Industries (RIL), top heavyweight and petrochem giant, continued its northward journey on sustained buying by institutional investors as well as operators on reports of proposal to buyback of shares in Monday's (Dec 20, 2004) board meeting.

Select banking shares remained in limelight on good buying support.

Easing of global crude oil prices below $ 45-mark a barrel also partly aided the positive trend.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery was at $ 44.26 in after hours electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex). Yesterday, the contract plunged $ 1.52.

Among index-based shares, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Dr Reddy, GACL, Hero Honda, Hindalco, HPCL, ITC, ONGC, Ranbaxy, REL, SBI, Tata Motors, Tisco and Zee Telefilms were quoted marginally higher on some buying support while HDFC, HDFC Bank and Infosys Tech who had moderate falls.