The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains after staging a gap up opening on the last day of calendar year of 2021 powered by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra Bank amid mixed trend in global markets. The Sensex rose as much as 510 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,359.
Global stock markets reversed gains after a day-long rally on Thursday even as fresh U.S. economic data indicated that a recent uptick of Omicron COVID-19 variant-related infections has not yet led to a surge in layoffs, a positive sign for the economy.
Thin trading volumes, which led to a dip in oil and a climb in the dollar, have outweighed earlier investor sentiment that high vaccination rates and signs of milder symptoms caused by the variant mean the economy will avoid a repeat of the disruption seen at the start of the pandemic.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.15 per cent, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.15 per cent.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.25 per cent while the S&P 500 lost 0.30 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.16 per cent, news agency Reuters reported.
As of 9:31 am, the Sensex was up 365 points at 58,159 and Nifty 50 index advanced 105 points to 17,309.
Buying was visible across the board as alll the 15 sector gauges, barring the index of information technology shares, were trading higher led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's 1.4 per cent gain. Nifty Metal, Bank, Financial Services, Private Bank, Realty and Consumer Durables indices also rose over 1 per cent each.
Broader markets were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.8 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed 1 per cent.
Hindalco was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 3.65 per cent to Rs 466. Titan, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Grasim Industries, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Bajaj Finserv and Mahindra & Mahindra also rose between 1.4-3 per cent.
On the flipside, NTPC, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Infosys, ONGC, Power Grid and HCL Technologies were among the notable losers in the Nifty 50 basket of shares.
The overall market breadth was positive as extremely positive as 2,279 shares were advancing while 594 were declining on the BSE.
