Wednesday, June 8 2005 11:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Led by banking sector, the Sensex today (Jun 8, 2005) rallied past the 6800-mark after opening sharply lower and was quoted 53 points up at 10:30 hrs (IST) on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on selective buying support from investors.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened sharply down at 6768.20 as against yesterday's (Jun 7, 2005) close of 6781.25 and later surged up to a high of 6837.20 before being quoted at 6834.49 at 10:30 hrs (IST), up by 53.24 points.

Bank shares remained in the limelight and were quoted remarkably higher on fresh buying support prompted by strong expectations of speedy reforms in the sector following the green signal by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to banks for funding corporates for overseas acquisitions.

Meanwhile, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have slowed down purchases, reported net investments of a meagre Rs 87.70 crore on Monday (Jun 6, 2005).

Global oil prices, however, fell further to $53.76 a barrel in New York on OPEC comments suggesting an increase in crude production output and anticipated rising investors in the United States.

Operators and local funds were believed to be buyers in bank stocks during early trade, brokers said.

SBI, BoB, ICICI bank, Federal Bank and some others showed impressive gains.

TCS Ltd, Tata Motors, Satyam Computers, RIL, ITC, Hero Honda, HDFC, Grasim, BHEL and ACC also were quoted substantially higher on fresh buying support.