Mumbai: The Sensex opened on a strong footing and crossed the 5200-mark in two-way movements at the opening session on the Stock Exchange, in Mumbai (BSE) today (August 2, 2004) on sustained buying by foreign funds as well as operators.

The BSE-30 shares sensitive index opened firm at 5193.25 as against last Friday's close of 5170.32 and moved irregularly in a range between 5202.94 and 5167.29 before being quoted at 5186.63 at 10.30 am, up by 16.31 points.

Cements and auto shares continued to be in good demand on persistent buying by Foreign Institutional Investors (FII's).

Revival of monsoon in some parts of the countries aided the uptrend, dealers said.

Operators seemed to have shifted their attention to low priced mid-cap stocks and as a results, a host of these shares continued their upward march, they added.

Index based counters like Tata Motors, Maurti Udyog, Hero Honda, Grasim, GACL, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Ranabaxy, ONGC, HLL, HPCL and ICICI Bank were quoted remarkably higher on good buying support. Among top gainers Sygenta was quoted 6.32 per cent higher, TVS Motor by 5.76 per cent, Escorts by 5.48 per cent, FACT by 5.27 per cent and India Cement by 4.69 per cent.

Dlink showed moderate loss by 10.56 per cent, IDBI Bank by 6.27 per cent, Wlspguj by 5.53 per cent, CESC by 4.75 per cent.