Mumbai: The sensex opened on a promising note and later moved upwards during morning trading in line with a fresh upsurge in stocks on the Stock Exchange in Mumbai today (November 18) on continued investors buying.

The BSE 30-share Sensitive Index opened moderately higher at 4955.32 as against yesterday's (November 17) close of 4940.23 and later firmed up to a high at 4981.48 before being quoted at 4966.95 at 10.30 AM (IST).

Attributing fresh rally to buying by speculators, brokers said the market has, once again, turned operator-driven even as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) drastically slowed down activity. FIIs made small net investments of Rs 12 crore last Friday (November 14).

The slow down in FII activity was expected due to the approaching year-end, brokers added.

ACC, Bajaj Auto, BSES, Dr Reddy, GACL, Grasim, HPCL, Infosys Tech, ONGC, Satyam Computers, Tata Motor, Tata Power, Wipro and Zee Tele were quoted remarkably higher.

Meanwhile, a weak trend in global market did not have any impact on the market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday ended lower by over 57 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index by about 27 points as new fears of terrorism sent stock markets tumbling around the world.

Among the top gainers, Asian Paints were quoted up by 3.44 per cent, Zee Tele by 3.25 per cent, JB Chem by 3.02 per cent, Ingersoll by 2.88 per cent, Infosys Tech by 2.18 per cent, Ind Rayon by 2.10 per cent, BoB by 2.03 per cent, Aurobindo Pharma by 1.89 per cent and HPCL by 1.70 per cent.

PTI