Mumbai: The SENSEX opened firm and headed towards the 4,700-mark in line with continued bull-run during the morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on October 7 on fresh buying by institutional investors and speculators.

However, the BSE barometer met with a strong resistance at higher levels due to selling pressure in key stocks like RIL, SBI and HLL, which reacted negatively after early upsurge.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened higher at 4,644.86 as against October 6 close of 4,631.39 and later surged up to a high at 4,672.02 before being quoted at 4,638.18 at 10.30 am (IST).

Increased Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) activity coupled with expectations of encouraging quarterly results which will be announced shortly, seemed to be driving the market to new heights.

Speculators were believed to be enlarging commitments on the back of the highest single-session net investments of Rs 582 crore by FIIs on October 3. FIIs have made net purchases of Rs 1,285 crore during last week.

Index-based counters like BHEL, HPCL, ITC, Ranbaxy Lab, Tisco, Tata Motor and Infosys Tech were quoted higher.

Among the top gainers, STC India were quoted up by 9.35 per cent, Hind Zinc by 6.35 per cent, Gujarat Mineral by 5.18 per cent, Aztech Soft by 4.06 per cent, Sygenta by 4.03 per cent, JB Chem by 3.96 per cent, Nalco by 3.68 per cent, Bata India by 3.19 per cent and ICICI Bank by 3.07 per cent.

PTI