Monday, August 22 2005 11:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (August 22, 2005) started firm and rose further smartly by 54.91 points during the early trading on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) on good buying activity.

The BSE benchmark 30-share sensitive index opened higher at 7814.93 as against the previous close of 7780.76 and rose further to 7842.37, before being quoted at 7835.67 at 10.30 am, showing a smart gain of 54.91 points over the previous close.

Despite surging world crude oil prices which had touched almost $ 66 per barrel, buying was fairly good in key stocks giving an upward push to the index, brokers said.

Better Asian markets where Nikkei was trading higher by more than 135 points, Heng Seng by round 40 points and Kopsi firmer by 21 points also boosted the market sentiment during the early stage, they said.

Both Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Domestic Funds (DF) were making good buyings as FIIs recorded net purchases in equities at Rs 495.9 crore (USD 113.9 million) for the trading week ended August 19, while MFs were also net purchasers at Rs 285.23 crore, brokers said.

The firm spots during the morning trading were RIL, REL, Infosys Tech, ITC, L&T, ONGC, Maruti, Dr Reddy, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Hindalco, HLL, SBI and Tata Steel.

However, Grasim, Tata Motors, ACC and Satyam Computers remained weak on lack of support.