Mumbai: After a fall of about 175 points during the last couple of sessions, the sensex opened on a promising note and showed signs of recovery on the back of a moderate stocks rally during morning trading on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) on October 22 on fresh buying support.

The BSE Benchmak 30-share Index opened moderately higher at 4772.84 as against October 21's close of 4755.72 and later rose past 4800-mark to a high at 4901.70 before being quoted at 4768.41 at 10.30 AM.

After two-days of intense profit selling that brought the sensex down by 174.81 points, investors seemed to have started selective purchases.

The onslaught by domestic mutual funds and hedge funds sent stocks prices reeling down during the past two sessions, brokers said, adding that Foreign Institutional Investors were net buyers to the tune of Rs 319 crore on October 20.

Index-based counters like ACC, Grasim Ind, Bajaj Auto, HPCL, ICICI Bank, Infosys Tech, Zee Telefilms, Tisco, Tata Motor, RIL, Satyam Computers and SBI were quoted moderately up on fairly good buying support.

However, BHEL, L&T, BSES, Cipla and HDFC showed modest falls on continued selling pressure.

Among the top gainers, Geometric Soft was quoted up by 5.71 per cent, NIC Piramal by 3.68 per cent, Sonata Soft by 3.22 per cent, Ind Rayon by 2.65 per cent, Bombay Dyeing by 2.63 per cent, HCL Info by 2.53 per cent and BEL by 2.31 per cent.

However, Himachal Futur, Marico, STC India, CCI, Mukta Arts and Ind Hotel showed marked falls.

PTI