Friday, March 11 2005 11:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex continued its upward march after opening on a firm note in an otherwise cautious activity during morning trading today (Mar 11, 2005) on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) even as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) remained strong buyers in the equities.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened strong at 6921.02 as against yesterday's (Mar 10, 2005) close of 6907.65 and later fluctuated in a narrow range of 6948.54 and 6921.02 before being quoted at 6935.24 at 10:30 hrs (IST), up by 14.22 points.

FIIs reported hefty net investments of Rs 1753.30 crore in equities in the first three trading sessions of the week aiding the market to overcome the cautious approach by operators.

Attributing the massive single-session FIIs net purchases of Rs 793.20 crore on Wednesday (Mar 9, 2005) to their investments in Jet Airways Initial Public Offering (IPO), brokers said operators seemed to be cautious as the market moved closer to the psychologically important 7000-mark, which is expected to be breached by the month-end.

Blue chip counters like Tata Steel, Wipro, Tata Motors, RIL, Satyam Computers, Tata Power, Maruti Udyog, ICICI Bank, HPCL, Hero Honda, GACL, Cipla and ACC were quoted remarkably higher on fresh buying support.

However, HDFC, HDFC Bank and ITC showed moderate losses.