Mumbai: The sensex opened on a promising note and improved further during morning trading on the Stock Exchange in Mumbai today (Jul 19, 2004) on fresh buying support from operators on hopes of reduction in proposed transaction tax rate shortly.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened higher at 4957.08 as against last Friday's (Jul 16, 2004) close of 4951.17 and later moved up to a high at 4973.82 before being quoted at 4973.53 at 10.30 hrs (IST), up by 22 points.

Operators and day-traders were seen making commitments in a number of counters on optimism that the proposed 0.15 per cent transaction tax rate would be lowered within the next couple of days.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which were net sellers to the tune of Rs 78 crore during the four sessions of last week, have increased their stakes in select automobile companies in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Key stocks like RIL, ACC, Grasim, HDFC, HDFC Bank, BHEL, Dr Reddy's, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, ITC, ONGC, Ranbaxy and SBI were quoted moderately higher. However, Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda and Tisco showed minor losses on profit booking.