Monday, July 18 2005 13:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Buoyed by sustained Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) inflows, the sensex today (July 18, 2005) opened past 7300-mark and later moved erratically during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) before being quoted 59 points up at 10.30 a.m.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened sharply up at 7325.65 as against last Friday's (July 15, 2005) close of 7271.54 and later fluctuated in a range of 7335.94 and 7308.87 before being quoted at 7330.65 at 10.30 a.m., up by 59.11 points.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were believed to be buyers in blue chip counters during early trade. FIIs have pumped in over Rs 1,269 crore in equity in the first four trading days last week, taking the total net investments to more than Rs 23,000 crore in the current calendar year so far.

Brokers said the market is driven by the sole factor of consistent FII inflows even as it met with little resistance in the form of profit booking from operators and local funds.

Operators and domestic financial institutions seemed to be booking profits at higher levels.

Key stocks like Infosys Tech, Wipro, Tata Steel, TCS Ltd, State Bank of India (SBI), Satyam Computers, L&T, ICICI Bank, Hero Honda, HDFC, ACC and Bajaj Auto were quoted remarkably up on buying support.

However, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), ITC and a few others showed marked falls due to selling pressure.