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After a sluggish start, the benchmark share indices extended gains in the first hour of trade led by gains in HDFC Group shares and index heavyweights.
At 10:20AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 211 points at 22,555 and 50-share Nifty was up 64 points at 6,724.
Foreign institutional investors continue to remain net buyers in Indian equities to the tune of Rs 808 crore this week so far.
The rupee was trading tad higher at Rs 60.05 to the US dollar. On Thursday, the rupee had ended strong at Rs 60.06 due to dollar sale by corporate and foreign banks.
Asian markets recovered from their early lows after inflation data from China which was in line, helping boost sentiment. The Nikkei was up 0.2%, Shanghai was down 0.3%, Hang Seng was up 0.1% and Straits Times gained 0.1%.
All sectoral indices on the BSE were in the green, except for Healthcare index which was marginally down. The BSE Power, Capital Goods, Bankex, IT, Consumer Durables, FMCG and Realty Indices were among the top sectoral gainers.
HDFC and HDFC Bank were up over 1.4% each, contributing the most to the Sensex gains.
Among the index heavyweights, Reliance Ind was up 0.6%, Infosys was up 0.7% and ITC was up 0.9%.
Among other shares, Wonderla Holidays has listed at Rs 160, a 28% premium against its issue price of Rs 125 per share on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Currently, the stock is trading at Rs 162. It touched a high of Rs 168 and a low of Rs 160 so far.
The Rs 180-crore public issue of amusement park operator Wonderla Holidays was priced at Rs 115-125 per share. The issue was subscribed over 38 times on the final day of bidding, with the non-institutional book getting subscribed 159.04 times.
Ahmednagar Forging has surged 12% to Rs 171 after reporting a 46% year-on-year (yoy) growth in net profit at Rs 55.53 crore for the quarter ended March 2014 on the back of higher sales. The auto ancillary company had reported a profit of Rs 38 crore in the same period of the previous year.
Bharat Forge is trading higher by 3% at Rs 428 after the company said that its German subsidiary, Bharat Forge Aluminumtechnik GmbH & Co KG (BFAT) has won a multiyear contract worth EUR 250 million from a German OEM to supply suspension components.
The BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.2% and Small-cap index was up 0.4%.
Market breadth was positive with 1,095 gainers and 618 losers on the BSE.
