Friday, December 9 2005 11:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark index was today (Dec 9,2005) made further headway in the operator-driven market and was quoted 62 points up during morning trading on fresh buying support from investors.

Despite a slowdown in Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) inflows in the week, the market stood on a firm footing with select operators enlarging their commitments while others unloaded stocks at any rise in a few blue chip stocks, brokers said.

The 30-share Sensex opened steady at 8,907.72 against yesterday's close of 8,906.31 and later rallied smartly to a high of 8,970.67 before being quoted at 8,968.73 at 10.30 am, up by 62.42 points over last close.

A leading bull operator was believed to be pushing the market up by absorbing sales made by bears, which have been trying to hammer down prices, brokers added.

Meanwhile, FII, which have slowed down inflows, reported net sales of Rs 68.50 crore on December 7 but on the same day, domestic mutual funds made net purchases of Rs 124.7 crore.

Blue chip stocks like Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), HDFC, Cipla, Bajaj Auto, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Dr Reddy's Lab, Grasim, Satyam Computer, Tata Motors and Wipro were quoted remarkably up on fresh buying support.

However, Bharti Tele-Venture, Maruti Udyog and a few others showed marked losses on selling pressure.