NEW DELHI: Shares of GAIL (up 3.55 per cent), Tata Steel (up 2.28 per cent), Vedanta (up 2.20 per cent), NTPC (up 1.81 per cent) and Hindalco Industries (up 1.70 per cent) were trading as the top gainers in the Nifty50 index in Friday's early trade.

YES Bank (up 1.70 per cent), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (up 1.55 per cent), Indian Oil Corporation (up 1.27 per cent), Adani Ports SEZ (up 1.24 per cent), UltraTech Cement (up 1.22 per cent), Ambuja Cements (up 1.20 per cent) and Bosch (up 1.10 per cent) were the other major gainers in the Nifty index.

However, Tata Motors (down 0.97 per cent), HDFC (down 0.33 per cent), Zee Entertainment (down 0.31 per cent) and HDFC Bank (down 0.14 per cent) were the top losers among the Nifty stocks.

Shares of YES Bank (number of shares traded: 0.14 crore), ICICI Bank (0.13 crore), Petronet LNG (0.12 crore) and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (0.09 crore) were trading as the most active stocks in terms of volume on NSE in Friday's early trade.

Equity benchmarks kicked off Friday's session on a positive note, with Sensex rising over 150 points and Nifty touching 9,940.

Benchmark Nifty50 index was 42 points up at 9,931, while the 30-share Sensex was 120 points up at 31,712 around 9.35 am (IST).

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On the NSE, 1156 stocks were advancing, compared with 348 stocks declining and 444 stocks remaining unchanged.