Mumbai: Second-line software shares were in limelight in an otherwise dull and listless trading at opening session at the Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) on April 21 on select buying support from operators on the back of positive advices from Wall Street.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly better at 2992.90 as against last Thursday's close of 2984.50 and was trapped in a very narrow range of 3002.11 and 2986.55 before being quoted at 2998.04 at 10.45 a.m.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 80.04 points and the Nasdaq composite index rose 30.78 points last Thursday. For the last week, both indices finished higher, with the Dow gaining 1.6 per cent and the Nasdaq surging 4.9 per cent.

Software counters, particularly, second-rung attracted good buying enquiries at the prevailing lower levels while old-economy shares ruled mixed on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

Among major gainers, NIIT spurted by 10.98 per cent, SSI Ltd by 6.99 per cent, Polaris Soft by 6.34 per cent, Hindustan Zinc by 6.27 per cent, Geometric Soft by 6.05 per cent, RCF by 5.21 per cent, Hexaware by 4.80 per cent, GTL Ltd by 4.40 per cent, Tata Tea by 4.20 per cent and Silverline by 3.92 per cent.

However, E-Serve Int, Sonata Soft, Bata India, Lupin Ltd and Escorts were quoted marginally lower.

PTI