Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices traded higher during early hours on Friday as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prepared to announce its bi-monthly monetary policy later during the day.
However, a lot of market experts expected status quo in the latest monetary policy as inflation remains above the RBI's target.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 279 points or 0.63 per cent at 44,912 while the Nifty 50 gained by 83 points or 0.63 per cent at 13,217.
Except for Nifty IT and pharma which dipped marginally, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green.
Nifty metal was up by 1.6 per cent, auto by 1 per cent, private bank by 0.8 per cent and financial service by 0.7 per cent.Among stocks, UltraTech Cement and Hindalco gained by nearly 5 per cent each to Rs 5,139.90 and Rs 253.30 per share. The other prominent winners were L&T, ICICI Bank, GAIL, Mahindra & Mahindra and Adani Ports.
However, those which lost were Asian Paints, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Reliance Industries.
Meanwhile, Asian shares scaled a record high on the growing prospect of a large US economic package. Hopes that vaccine rollouts will boost the global economy underpinned investor sentiment.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan rose by 0.6 per cent while Japan's Nikkei dipped by 0.4 per cent on profit taking. South Korea's Kospi was up by 1.3 per cent. (ANI)
