Mumbai: Arrival of South West monsoon helped the SENSEX to extend last weekend's rally in line with a smart upsurge in old-economy shares at opening session on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) on June 9 on sustained buying by foreign funds and operators.

The BSE-30 share SENSITIVE INDEX opened slightly better at 3304.65 as against June 6 close of 3303.24 and moved irregularly on alternate outs of buying and selling in a rate between 3324.16 and 3295.14 before being quoted at 3317.11 at 10 45 hours.

Onset of South West monsoon in Kerala and Tamil Nadu mainly triggered a fresh buying in old economy shares, a dealer said expecting the monsoon would be normal in 2003.

However, software counter suffered a sharp setback on selling by foreign funds and operators following negative advices firm Wall Street where the tech-heavy NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX dropped by 18.59 points on June 6.

Digital GlobalCoft bore the brunt of heavy off loading and was down by over 30 per cent on concerns over the acquisition of Hewlett Packard India Software Operations (HPIQO) business by Digital GlobalSoft, which would not benefit the public shareholders of the company and might affect the earnings, a broker said.

IBP, Balaji Telefilms, India Cement, Hinduja TMT, Jaiprakash Ind, GSFC D-link, Sonata, Saw Pipes, and BILT were quoted remarkably higher Century Enka, Tisco, Hughes Soft, SSI Ltd, Satyam Computer and Wipro, however, declined marginally.

PTI