Mumbai: The Sensex opened moderately higher and later breached the 5600-mark during morning trading in line with a fresh stocks rally at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 23, 2003) on sustained buying by operators coupled with consistent net investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened better at 5590.01 as against yesterday's close of 5577.96 and later moved upwards to a high at 5616.25 before being quoted at 5606.99 at 10.30 am.

Operators were continued buyers in a bid to cover short positions ahead of the expiry of December contract in derivatives segment on Wednesday.

FIIs too were sustained buyers in several blue chip counters and believed to have pumped in fresh funds in the bourses taking their total net investments to a new record.

Bank stocks were in the limelight on keen demand from investors. Key Banking stocks like SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and others were quoted substantially higher.

Bharati Televenture, Dr Reddy's Lab, GACL, HLL, HPCL, Hindalco, Infosys Tech and Tisco also were quoted up.

Among the top gainers, National Fert were quoted up by 6.85 per cent, BEML by 5.63 per cent, Infor Ent by 4.67 per cent, Nirma by 4.30 per cent, Neyveli by 4.19 per cent, Dredging Corp by 3.90 per cent, Zee by 3.55 per cent, JK Bank by 3.53 per cent, Sterlite Bio by 3.40 per cent and Escorts by 3.33 per cent.