Mumbai: After the overnight fall, the Sensex opened on a promising note and showed signs of recovery during the session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Jan 13, 2004) on renewed buying by retailers on the back of fairly heavy net investments by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) last weekend.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened remarkably higher at 6,084.65 as against yesterday's close of 6,067.76 and later rose to the a high at 6,099.46 before being quoted at 6,080.59 at 10.30 hrs (IST).

Brokers, however, felt that bulls will continue their selling ahead of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) deadline of January 14 to cut their exposure to 50 per cent following its permission for margin funding.

Commenting on the market trend, market sources said retailers' buying was prompted by the SEBI's release of FIIs net investment figure of Rs 440 crore. FIIs were net buyers to the tune of Rs 1,072 crore during last week.

Key counters like ACC, BSES, Dr Reddy's Lab, GACL, Grasim, Infosys Tech, L&T, RIL, SBI, Tata Motor, Tata Power and few others were quoted higher on buying support.

While others like Satyam Computers, ITC, HPCL, HDFC, Cipla and Bajaj Auto showed moderate falls.

Among the top gainers, NIC Lab were quoted up by 5.65 per cent, BoB by 4.95 per cent, OBC by 4.13 per cent, Finolex Ind by 3.59 per cent, Andhra Bank by 3.58 per cent, IBP by 3.54 per cent, MICO by 3.37 per cent and IDBI by 3.06 per cent.

However, CMC, Thermax, Mastek, Sygenta, Thomas Cook and Bharat Forge registered falls.