Mumbai: The Sensex opened strong and once again rallied past the 6000-mark in fairly good activity during morning trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange today (Nov 23, 2004) on fresh buying support from investors.

Operators and retailers were seen making commitments in a number of blue chip stocks as foreign funds reportedly made sizeable purchases yesterday after clarification by RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani on the "ownership issue".

RIL shares, however, showed a moderate fall on fresh selling pressure as the market awaited a statement from Anil Ambani, on the issue.

Meanwhile, Foreign Institutional Investors also reported net investments of Rs 517.30 crore last Friday.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened firm at 5982.91 as against yesterday's close of 5963.80 and later spurted to a high of 6000.13 before being quoted at 5993.21 at 10.30 am, up 29.41 points.

Brokers anticipated investors' return in a big way after the midsession when FIIs might step up their activity.

Ruling out any major squaring up of positions ahead of the expiry of November contract in the Futures and Options (F&O) on Thursday, brokers said sustained FII inflows is the principal driving force behind the market.

Blue chips including SBI, ITC, Tata Steel, Wipro, Satyam Computer, ONGC, BHEL, Maruti Udyog, Tata Motor, GACL, HPCL, REL, Ranbaxy, ACC and Bharti Tele-Venture were quoted sharply higher on fresh buying support.