Markets were trading near their day highs in late morning deals, tracking gains in Asia, led by oil and software shares.
At 11:32AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 101 points at 19,425 after touching an intra-day high of 19,445 whereas the 50-share Nifty gained 32 points at 5,903 levels after touching an intra-day high of 5,910 so far.
Asian markets were trading higher on Friday led by Japan's Nikkei on the back of weaker yen. China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.6% to 2,218, Singapore's Straits Times rose 0.1% to 3,188, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.2% to 22,663 while Japan's Nikkei gained 0.8% to 10,409.
The sectoral indices on the BSE was led by the Oil & Gas index up 1.6% after the gradual hike in diesel prices proposed by the government. Other indices which gained include, Power, Capital Goods, IT, Realty and Metal indices up 0.7-1% each.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was up 1% leading gains on the Sensex along with PSU exploration major ONGC. ONGC was up 2.6% on hopes that hike in retail diesel prices would benefit the company on account of lower subsidy outgo to oil marketing companies.
Among sofware shares, TCA was up 0.8%, Infosys and Wipro were both up nearly 1% each.
Oil marketing companies continued to trade higher as the proposed gradual hike in diesel and kerosene prices would help them reduce their under-recoveries. Bhart Petroleum was up 4.4%, Hindustan Petroleum was up 4.1% and Indian Oil Corp was up 3% at Rs 269.
Among other shares, Bharti Infratel is trading at Rs 198, down 10% to its issue price of Rs 220 on the National Stock Exchange. The Sunil Bharti Mittal led-company which raised about Rs 4,118 crore through initial public offer (IPO) has fixed the issue price at Rs 220 per share for institutional investors, while giving a discounted price of Rs 210 for retail investors.
Manaksia Ltd surged over 13% to Rs 57 after the company said its board approved the restructuring plans of the company. The transferee companies will issue one equity share of face value of Re 1 each to the shareholders of Manaksia for every share of the face value of Rs 2 each held by them on the record date, to be decided and fixed at a later date, it added.
In the broader market, the Mid-cap index was up 0.8% and the Small-cap index gained 0.6%.
Market breadth continued to remain strong with 1,510 gainers and 846 losers on the BSE.
