Mumbai: The SENSEX opened past 3900-mark and later rallied smartly in line with a fresh upsurge in old economy stocks during morning trading at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on August 12 sustained buying support by operators and institutional investors.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened remarkably higher at 3907.03 as against August 11 close of 3893.41 and later rose to a high at 3933.10 before being quoted at 3931.76 at 10.30 am.

Heavyweight counters like BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) and Infosys Technologies as well as pharma stocks attracted fairly heavy buying from speculators and domestic funds.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which made net investments of Rs 383 crore during last week, seemed to have slowed down activity and were seen making selective purchases in some blue-chip shares.

BHEL was quoted sharply higher on buying prompted by reports that the company has bagged a Rs 1412 crore order from NTPC while Infosys Tech recovered part of overnight losses on the company's decision to ramp up Pune operations by investing Rs 250 crore over the next few years.

HLL, ITC, Bajaj Auto, BSES, Cipla, Glaxo, Grasim, MTNL, RIL, SBI, Telco and Tisco showed marked gains.

Among the top gainers, Indal were quoted up by 9.99 per cent, SAIL by 7.42 per cent, IDBI Bank by 6.34 per cent, Cadilla Health by 3.82 per cent, Jindal Steel by 3.58 per cent, BHEL by 3.54 per cent, Aztec Soft by 3.20 per cent, Siemens by 3.19 per cent and LIC Housing by 3.08 per cent.

PTI