The market was hovering in a narrow range near day's high in early afternoon trade. At 12:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 338.98 points or 0.95% at 36,146.26. The Nifty 50 index was up 104.60 points or 0.97% at 10,884.40.
Key indices started Friday's session on a positive note tracking firm global cues. Indices extended gains as the session progressed and hit fresh intraday high in morning trade. Indices held firm near day's high in early afternoon trade.
Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index and the BSE Small-Cap index were up by 0.81% each.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 1555 shares rose and 764 shares fell. A total of 125 shares were unchanged.
Cement shares rose across the board. Ambuja Cements (up 2.21%), ACC (up 1.51%) and UltraTech Cement (up 0.29%), edged higher.
Grasim Industries was up 0.79%. Grasim has exposure to cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.
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Shares of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group companies jumped. Reliance Capital (up 5.48%), Reliance Power (up 4.04%), Reliance Infrastructure (up 3.78%), Reliance Communications (up 2.34%) and Reliance Naval and Engineering (up 2.16%), edged higher.
On the economic front, India's fiscal deficit in the first eight months of FY2018-2019 rose to Rs 7.17 lakh crore, hitting around 115% of the budgeted target for the current financial year, government data showed. The government had set a fiscal deficit target of Rs 6.24 lakh crore for FY2019.
Meanwhile, the government has revised the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of 23 items of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) items and has introduced MSP for 17 new MFP items. The 23 items whose MSP has been revised include those Minor Forest Produce items which have been covered under the scheme since its inception in the year 2013-14. The revised MSP also includes those MFP items which were announced on 31 October 2016 except Palash Flower (wet variety).
Overseas, Asian shares were trading higher following a turbulent session on Wall Street. In US, stocks erased heavy losses to end higher in a late-session turnaround that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average end more than 800 points above its session low. The rebound came after stocks initially struggled to build on the previous session's sharp rally.
On the US data front, first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 1,000 to 216,000 in the week ended December 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. Further, the Conference Board said its consumer-confidence index dropped to 128.1 this month from a revised 136.4 in November.
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