Among the top Nifty gainers in trade were Cairn India, Jaiprakash Associates and Sesa Sterlite. India's largest passenger car maker Maruti continued to rally on sustained buying interest.

Banking stocks which had witnessed large scale selling pressure on Thursday recovered some lost ground. Notable gainers from the space were Yes Bank, Union Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank.

Heavyweights, ITC and Reliance also gained marginally in early trade.

Stocks that added pressure on the Nifty were Hero Motor Corp, Sun Pharma and Tata Motors.

Mid cap stocks were also having a good session with stocks like India Cements, Jain Irrigation and Jubilant Foodworks gaining ground. Among the stocks that lost from the mid cap space were Godrej Consumer, Havells and Hindustan Zinc.

Software stocks were trading flat with a slight positive bias in early morning trade. HCL Tech declined marginally while Infosys and TCS gained ground.

Realty stocks saw buying support with the realty index up almost 1 per cent. Notable gainers from the space were Unitech, HDIL and Godrej Properties.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia were trading higher led by gains in the Japanese Nikkei and the Hong Kong's Hang Sang.

GoodReturns.in