Mumbai: The Sensex opened remarkably higher in line with sustained share price rally at opening session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Jan 02, 2004) following continued buying spree from foreign funds as well as operators.

BSE-30 share sensitive index opened firm at 5,944.23 as against yesterday's close of 5,915.47 and moved up further to a high of 5,992.45 before being quoted at 5,971.88 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Some of the public sector undertakings (PSUs) stocks remained in the limelight on persistent buying from institutional investors, resulting the sectorial BSE-PSU index was quoted past-4,000 mark at 4,033.90 as against previous close of 3,964.19.

A sharp hike in steel prices in line with global trends helped these scrips to rally sharply on good buying by operators as well as retail investors. Most of the IT shares also moved up on fresh buying support.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), main market movers, reportedly picked up shares worth Rs 6,250 crore in the month of December, 2003 while they pumped in total Rs 30,899 crore in the whole year of 2003.

The news that market regulator, Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), kept market activity under close surveillance to home following abnormal fluctuations, were unnoticed by the marketmen.

Among major gainers, Hind Ink was quoted up by 7.02 per cent, UTI Bank by 4.40 per cent, Jindal Steel by 4.04 per cent, Balaji Tele by 3.91 per cent, SAIL by 3.82 per cent, Glaxo by 3.54 per cent, ITC by 3.47 per cent and BPCL by 3.20 per cent. However, E-Serve, CCI, Gillett, Escorts and Bharti Tele showed moderate falls on selling.