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The Sensex topped the 20,700 mark and the Nifty was seen heading towards 6,150, amid firm global cues, with financials and IT majors gaining the most.
At 10:25AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 172 points at 20,709 and the 50-share Nifty was up 53 points at 6,144.
Asian stocks were trading higher on the back of encouraging manufacturing data from the US. The Nikkei was up 2%, Straits Times was up 0.6%, Hang Seng was up 0.7%. However, Shanghai Composite was down 0.9% on the back of weak economic data.
The rupee was trading higher at Rs 62.13 compared to Thursday's close of 62.23 on increased selling of the US currency by exporters. Further, gains in equities also helped improve sentiment.
BSE Bankex was the top gainer among the sectoral indices up 1.2% followed by Capital Goods, Metal, Auto, IT and FMCG indices among others.
In the financials segment ICICI Bank, HDFC, SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank were up 0.6-2% each.
IT exporters firmed up on encouraging economic data from the US. Infosys, TCS and Wipro were up over 0.3-1% each. All these companies earn major portion of their revenues from exports to the US.
Reliance Industries which remained subdued in the previous sessions also firmed up and was up 0.7% while ITC was up 0.9%
However, Bharti Airtel was the sole loser among Sensex stock down 0.7%. Bharti Airtel, which operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, late Thursday said it would move the Supreme Court of Nigeria against a February 14 judgment of the Court of Appeals, Lagos, which ruled in favour of Econet Wireless of Nigeria.
Among other shares, Shree Renuka Sugars has dipped 6% to Rs 21.20 after the company said it will sell 257.5 million fresh equity shares at price of Rs 20.08 per share to Singapore-based agri-business firm Wilmar International for Rs 517 crore in order to reduce the company's debt.
Rhodia Specialty has extended yesterday's upper circuit gains of and surged more than 6% to hit a record high of Rs 849 after Solvay SA, one of the promoter of the company, increased the delisting offer price to Rs 675 per share on Thursday.
Tara Jewels is locked in upper circuit for third day in a row, up 5% at Rs 102 after IDFC Mutual Fund acquired 4% stake in the company through open market on Tuesday.
In the broader markets, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were up 0.7% each.
Market breadth was positive with 1209 gainers and 494 losers on the BSE.
