Tata Motors, Zee Entertainment and Maruti Suzuki were the top Nifty gainers
Here are 10 things to know about the markets today:
At 9:40 am, the Sensex traded 636.42 points - or 2.01 per cent - higher at 32,279.12 while the Nifty was up 185.85 points - or 2.01 per cent - at 9,437.35. Market breadth was highly positive with an advance-decline ratio of 3:1, as 951 stocks traded higher on the BSE against 301 that moved in the opposite direction.
Top percentage gainers in the Nifty basket of 50 components at the time were Tata Motors, Zee Entertainment, Maruti Suzuki India, IndusInd Bank and UltraTech Cement, trading between 3.76 per cent and 5.74 per cent higher.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Nestle and ICICI Bank - down 2.64 per cent, 1.03 per cent and 0.12 per cent respectively - were the only losers in the Nifty.
ICICI Bank shares fell as much as 2.03 per cent to hit the Rs 330.90 apiece mark on the BSE, after the private sector lender reported its earnings for the January-March Period. ICICI Bank posted a net profit of Rs 1,221.36 crore for the quarter ended March 31, up 26.04 per cent compared to the corresponding period a year ago.
Analysts awaited the release of official macroeconomic data and more large cap companies to post their financial results for cues.
The government will release data on consumer inflation for April and industrial production for the previous month on Tuesday. On Wednesday, official data on wholesale inflation will be released.
Kotak Mahindra Bank and Maruti Suzuki India will report their January-March earnings on Wednesday, and Biocon the next day.
Equities elsewhere in Asia jumped, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan last seen trading 0.93 per cent higher in early trade. Japan's Nikkei 225 benchmark was up 1.42 per cent at the time, while China's Shahghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng indices were up 0.34 per cent and 1.89 per cent respectively.
The S&P 500 E-Mini futures were last up 0.44 per cent, indicating a positive opening later in the day. On Friday, the US markets had jumped, with the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite indices ending 1.69 per cent, 1.91 per cent and 1.58 per cent higher respectively.
Earlier on Friday, the Sensex had ended 199.32 points - or 0.63 per cent - higher at 31,642.70 and the Nifty settled at 9,251.50, up 52.45 points - or 0.57 per cent - from its previous close.
