Mumbai: The SENSEX opened on a promising note and later rallied smartly in line with a stocks upsurge during morning trading at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 9, 2003) on fresh buying prompted by continued flow of funds as well as bullish trend in Indian ADRs (American Depository receipts) in global markets.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened higher at 5143.19 as against yesterday's close of 5131.54 and later shot up to a high at 5181.87 before being quoted at 5179.59 at 10.30 am.

Operators seemed to be encouraged by heavy investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) during last week after a brief slow down coupled with reports that investors in global markets are picking up ADRs of Indian companies at a significant premium.

FIIs have made net purchases of about Rs 1,523 crore during last week. Even retailers including domestic mutual funds remained net buyers last week.

Key shares like ACC, Bajaj Auto, Bharti Televenture, BHEL, HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, HPCL, ICICI bank, Infosys Tech, ITC, ONGC, Satyam Computers, SBI, Tata Motors, Tisco, Tata Power and Zee Telefilms were quoted remarkably higher.

Among the top gainers, MIRC Electronics were quoted up by 6.06 per cent, Bombay Dyeing by 5.69 per cent, National Fert by 5.03 per cent, IDBI Bank by 4.37 per cent, Balaji Tele by 4.31 per cent, Zee Tele by 3.92 per cent, Exide Ind by 3.62 per cent, MRF by 3.54 per cent, Mastek by 3.45 per cent and Polaris Soft by 3.16 per cent.

PTI