Friday, August 26 2005 11:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Discounting concerns over high crude prices and negative Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) activity, the sensex today (August 26, 2005) rallied smartly during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange LTD (BSE) on fresh buying support investors.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened firm at 7696.64 as against yesterday's (August 25, 2005) close of 7660.42 and later rose past 7700-mark to a high of 7704.31 as investors made fairly good commitments at the early stages.

Domestic financial institutions were believed to be buyers in select heavy weighted counters.

Brokers said traders also seemed to be making purchases in some counters at early stages to push up the prices before they could book profits in the latter part of the session.

FIIs, which have slowed down activity for the past few days, however, reported net sales of Rs 110.50 crore on Wednesday (August 24, 2005).

Tata Steel, TCS Ltd, State Bank of India (SBI), Tata Motor, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Satyam Computers, Tata Power, Maruti Udyog, Infosys Tech, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), ICICI Bank, Hero Honda, HDFC, Dr Reddy's Lab, Cipla and ACC were quoted smartly on fresh buying support.