Mumbai: The sensex resumed slightly higher and showed signs of further rally at morning session on the stock exchange in Mumbai today (Sep 27, 2004) on fresh buying support as well as short covering by operators.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened better at 5530.00 as against last Friday's (Sep 24, 2004) close of 5527.75 and moved in a range between 5542.55 and 5517.08 before being quoted at 5541.91 as 10.30 hrs (IST), up by 14.16 points.

Short covering by operators ahead of the expiry of September contract on Thursday mainly helped the sensex rise, dealers said.

Index-based shares like Infosys Tech, BHEL, Cipla, Dr Reddy, Grasim, HDFC, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, Ranbaxy, Tata Motor, Tisco and Zee Telefilms were quoted remarkably higher on good buying while RIL, HPCL, ITC, ONGC and SBI showed moderate falls on profit-selling.

Select pharma counters attracted good buying support from institutional investors. According some market participants, there would be profit-booking after mid session due to sustained rise in global crude oil prices which hit $49.24 a barrel in early Asian trade.

However, PNB, Bharati Tele, CMC, FACT, BPCL, Century Textile, BOI and Tata Tea showed moderate fall.