Indian shares gained in late-morning trades this Friday led by buying in rate-sensitive sectors such as banks, real-estate, auto ahead of key central bank monetary policy review next week.
The Reserve Bank of India will unveil its mid-quarter polciy review on January 29 amid hopes the central bank may cut interest rates to boost growth into the Asia's third-biggest economy.
At 11:40AM, the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex rose 49 points and traded at 19,972.04 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty gained 9 points at 6,027.85.
In the results calendar, Maruti Suzuki, Reliance Power and Tata Coffee will declare their third quarter performances later today.
Japanese stocks soared on Friday, boosted by fresh multiyear lows for the yen, while the rest of Asia looked set to end the week on a less positive note. Nikkei added 2% to 10,832. Kospi, Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite slipped half a per cent each.
Back home, consumer durables, autos, banks, real-estate, health care indexes gained while metal, oil & gas indexes dropped on BSE.
Among key Sensex stocks, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra gained over 1%, Dr Reddy's rose 1.4% while Cipla is up 1%, Bahrti Airtel rose 1.3%, Larsen & Toubro gained 0.6% on BSE.
Among losers, Tata Power fell over 1%, HDFC fell 1%, and Bajaj Auto dropped 0.01%, Reliance Industries is down 0.5%, Jindal Steel and Sterlite Industries declined 1% and 0.1% on BSE.
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The other notable movers include Larsen & Toubro which is up half a per cent at Rs 1,594. CLSA has upgraded the stock to "outperform" from "underperform", citing favourable policies from the government and expected interest cuts would be reflected in the company's earnings by the second half of fiscal 2013/14.
Maruti Suzuki India is trading higher by 2% at Rs 1,562 ahead of the third quarter results which are due later in the day today. According to an estimate of analysts the company's net profit in Q3 is likely to double to Rs 496 crore, against a net profit of Rs 206 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.
Suzlon Energy has surged almost 5% to Rs 18.90 after the wind energy major said that the empowered group of corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell have approved its proposal for the restructuring of its domestic debt.
Sesa Goa fell 1.07% to Rs 176.40 after consolidated net profit fell 28.2% to Rs 496.73 crore on 91% slide in total income to Rs 237 crore in Q3 December 2012 over Q3 December 2011.
Housing Development and Infrastructure rose 2.01% to Rs 76.15 on bargain hunting after the stock slumped 38.46% in the preceding four sessions to Rs 74.65 on 24 January 2013 from a recent high of Rs 121.30 on 18 January 2013.
The broader markets rose with mid-caps and small-caps up by0.2-0.4% on BSE.
The market breadth was negative. Out of 2,423 stocks traded, 1,257 stocks declined compared to 1,046 advances on BSE.