Sensex opens 23.28 points up

Mumbai Oct 4 (UNI) The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) today opened firm and is currently trading 23.28 points high at 12,389.66 than the previous close, as oil and refinery stocks and Reliance Energy edged higher riding on low crude oil price of US Dollar 58.42 a barrel.

The performance of Dow Jones which hit a record closing high, rising 56.99 points, or 0.49 per cent to end at 11.727.34 above it's previous record close at 11,722.98, set on Jan 14, 2000, is also a factor responsible for todays strong market performance. Asian markets are mixed till now. Hong Kong's Hang Seng, Japan's Nikkei, and Singapore's Straights Times index were up between 0.03 per cent to 0.21 per cent, however the Key benchmark indices in Taiwan and South Korea were down between 0.4 to 0.69 per cent.

Midcap and Smallcap continuing previous days performance were up 0.80 and 0.75 per cent respectively.

Except Bankex and Metals sector all other sectoral indices on BSE were trading up. Bank is down by 0.11 per cent and Metals down by 0.11 per cent.

Major gainers on the BSE-30 index are Reliance Energy, Ranbaxy, Reliance Communications, Tata Motors, HLL, L&T, Hero Honda, Cipla, Maruti Udyog and Gujarat Ambuja all up between 0.64 to 2.53 per cent.

Besides, the losers are TCS, BHEL, ICICI,SBI, Dr Reddy's lab, HDFC Bank, Hindalco, ONGC, ITC and Satyam Computers, all down between 0.08 to 1.68 per cent.

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