The Sensex rose 110 points, while the Nifty rallied 32 points in early trade. Banking stocks led gainers in trade with ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank among the early gainers.

FMCG stocks like Hindustan Unilever and ITC were subdued in trade with both the stocks showing marginal losses.

Ranbaxy Labs, which has remained volatile since the declaration of its results was trading flat at Rs 336. However, other pharma stocks like Cipla and Dr Reddy's saw some buying interest.

Mid cap stocks like Aurobindo Pharma and UPL were on fire with the former rallying as much as 5 per cent in trade, after reporting a sterling financial performance.

Realty stocks were in the limelight with Anant Raj, HDIL and Sobha Developers among the gainers. Software stocks were also trading higher on good economic data from the US, which remains a key market for Indian software firms.

Cement major ACC was trading lower after its results disappointed the street. Ambuja Cements on the other hand was up after the company reported results that met street expectations.

Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading higher, except the Shanghai Composite, which was trading with marginal losses. The Japanese Nikkei jumped 1.64 per cent in trade, while other markets like the Hong Kong's Hang Sang, the Singapore Strait Times and the Taiwan's Taipei were trading with gains.

GoodReturns.in