Sensex (BSE sensitive index) opened above the 3000 mark at 3007.68, touched the day's high of 3068.13 before closing at 3054.73, showing a sizeable gain of 91.28 against Thursday's close of 2963.45. The BSE-100 index rose by 42.87 points to 1356.92 from the previous close of 1314.05.

Operators said despite higher badla charges of around 24 per cent per annum, the sentiment was boosted and there was all round buying support. Foreign funds made heavy purchases in software counters like Pentafour Software, Satyam Computer and others like ITC, Tata companies were also in limelight. In spite of approaching year-end, foreign funds were aggressive and built up huge positions in several leading stocks, particularly multinationals and software computercompanies.

Several scrips reported 8 per cent gain and hit their price bands. Among them were Voltas, Pentafour Software, ITC Bhadra, Ashok Leyalnd, Arvind Mill, Blue Star, Bharat Earth Movers, Ballarpur Indus, BPL, Videocon International, Century Enka, CMC, GAIL, Gramophone India, Herberstons, Hind Construction, Hitech Drilling, Kirloskar Cummins, Lakme, Mastek and others. Besides, Tata scrips like Telco, Tisco also attracted buying support.

Meanwhile, share prices recorded handsome gains on good buying support from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic institutions at the National Stock Exchange today. The S&P CNX Nifty index firmed up by 18.75 points to end at 879.85 from the previous close of 861.10.

A total of 679 scrips advanced, 294 declined and 93 were unchanged. Also 84 securities hit their price bands. The total turnover was Rs 1989.83 crore in 8.13 crore shares. The number of trades was 256,592 and debenture traded value was Rs 40.49 lakh.