mumbai welcoming the appointment of p chidambaram as the finance minister the stock market rallied sharply in the first half of the session and was up by 156 points during midsession as operators enlarged their commitments on strong optimism that economic reforms would be carried forwardthe bse benchmark 30share index which opened on a firm footing at 499345 continued its upward march and rose to a high of 511732 before being quoted at 511710 at 1245 pm a net rise of 15553 points over previous close of 496157the market players were optimistic that the economic reforms would continue with chidambaram as the finance minister who had presented a dream budget in february 1997 in the united front government brokers saidkey it stocks like infosys technologies satyam computers and wipro were in the limelight and were quoted sharply higher on heavy buying support foreign institutional investors fiis were believed to be heavy buyers in it stocks which promise attractive investment opportunity at the prevailing price levels they added old economy stocks like ril sbi itc hero honda grasim bhel and acc also were quoted sharply up on fresh buying support