Mumbai: After a brief overnight pause, the market once again indicated upward trend with the Sensex opened firm in an otherwise stocks-specific activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 18, 2003) on sustained Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) inflows as well as selective buying by domestic funds.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened remarkably higher at 5,432.46 as against yesterday's close of 5,418.23 and later rose to a high at 5,445.97 before being quoted at 5,431.72 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

The market has become scrip-specific, but largely is driven by institutional investors. FIIs, which have made net investments of Rs 3,048 crore in the first 15 days of December, was the principal driving force behind the market, brokers said.

Operators and public investors seemed to be cautious at the prevailing higher price levels and were waiting for an opportunity for price correction to make fresh commitments, brokers added.

Key stocks like BHEL, BSES, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Lab, HDFC, HPCL, ICICI bank, Infosys Tech, Tisco, MTNL and ONGC were quoted remarkably up on buying support.

Among the top gainers, Adani Exports were quoted up by 11.82 per cent, Syngenta by 9.51 per cent, Escorts by 6.36 per cent, FACT by 4.65 per cent, Thermax by 3.98 per cent, Siemens by 3.93 per cent, Alstom Power by 3.90 per cent, Abbott by 3.85 per cent and Saw Pipe by 3.47 per cent.

PTI