Mumbai: A smart rally in banking shares highlighted trading at opening session at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 15 on sustained buying by operators and foreign funds.

IT stocks suffered a sharp setback following not so encouraging Q4 working results by Mastek. Net profit of the company was down by nearly 81 per cent in the fourth quarter.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly lower at 3719.17 from July 14 close of 3720.75 and moved up further to a high of 3733.30. However, profit taking at higher levels pulled down SENSEX to quote at 3706.55 at 10.30 am.

Cement and steel scrips also remained the favourites of the investing fraternity.

SBI, RIL, ICICI Bank, Ranbaxy, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Grasim, BHEL, GACL, Hindalco, ITC, Tisco, L&T and few others from index family were quoted marginally higher.

Despite positive advices from Wall Street where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose further by 20.89 points on July 14 night, most of the software shares bore the brunt of selling.

Among the major gainers, BoB rose by 4.41 per cent, IDBI Bank by 4.17 per cent, Vijaya Bank by 3.42 per cent, Indian Overseas Bank by 2.82 per cent, Cadila Health by 2.21 per cent, Andhra Bank by 2.10 per cent, ICICI Bank by 2.03 per cent and Bharti Tele by 1.86 per cent.

Mastek, however dipped by 30.96 per cent, TVS Motor by 15.48 per cent, Geometric Soft by 6.34 per cent and Visual Soft by 5.26 per cent.

PTI