Friday, November 18 2005 11:22 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The sensex today (Nov 18, 2005) rallied by 58 points during the opening session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) due to increased buying spree in key index-based shares and was quoted at 8707.32, just 101.51 points lower than the all-time high of 8808.83 points recorded on October 4.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (sensex) opened firm at 8669.84 and after rising further to a session high of 8726.11, was quoted at 8707.32 at 10.30 am, showing a smart gain of 57.80 points over yesterday's (Nov 17, 2005) close of 8649.52.

Operators and local funds continued to buy heavily, while Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) also remained net buyers.

With a net purchase of shares worth Rs 145.20 crore on November 16, the total buying by FIIs in the month of November so far has reached Rs 1746 crores. FIIs had bought shares worth a total of Rs 3694 crore in October.

During early trading, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Infosys Tech, Reliance Energy Limited (REL), Grasim, L&T, ITC, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL), Wipro, Maruti, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, State Bank of India (SBI), Dr Reddy, Rambaxy and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) were firm.