The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains after staging a gap up opening on Friday as investors flocked to value buying after a sharp correction in past few sessions ahead of Union Budget which will be announced on Tuesday amid positive global cues, analysts said. The Sensex rose as much as 763 points and Nifty moved above its important psychological level of 17,350.
As of 9:52 am, the Sensex was up 1.3 per cent or 747 points at 58,023 and Nifty 50 index advanced 230 points to 17,340.
Asian stocks recovered some of their steep losses from the previous session on Friday after U.S. markets limited further declines from hawkish U.S. Fed comments, supported by a firm economy and strong earnings at Apple Inc.
U.S. stock futures rose in Asia with Nasdaq 100 e-minis up 1.2 per cent and S&P 500 e-minis up 0.8 per cent after Apple on Thursday reported record sales in the holiday quarter, beating estimates. Apple shares rose over 5 per cent in after-hours trading.
Back home, buying was visible across the board as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty IT Index's 2.5 per cent gain. Nifty Realty, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, Metal, Media and Financial Services indices also rose between 1-2 per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares were outperforming their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose nearly 2 per cent each.
Among the individual shares, Punjab National Bank jumped over 2 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 42 after its profit more than doubled to Rs 1,127 crore in December quarter from Rs 506 crore in the same period last year.
ONGC was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 5 per cent to Rs 174. Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, Eicher Motors, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, Tata Consumer Products, Adani Ports, Infosys, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv and Divi's Labs were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, Maruti Suzuki and Power Grid were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,337 shares were advancing while 589 were declining on the BSE.
