Buying was visible across the sectors. Banking, oil & gas, realty, capital goods, pharma and IT indices were up 0.5-0.8 per cent each.
From the Nifty-50 basket of stocks, the advancing stocks outnumbered the declining stocks as 42 stocks advanced while 8 stocks were losing.
Asian Paints was the top Nifty gainer, 1.9 per cent to Rs 724. BPCL, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Infosys and HCL Technologies were also among the gainers.
9:15 a.m.: Sensex jumps 100 points to 26,934 and the Nifty gains 17 points at 8,109.
9:08 a.m.: Pre-market session- Nifty jumps 22 points to 8,114 and the Sensex jumps 85 points to 26,917.
9:06 a.m.: Rohit Srivastava of Sharekhan says that the market is likely to head lower and the Nifty can temporarily bounce back up to 8,200 and we are not likely to go to new highs this year and if the Nifty breaks 7,700 then it can fall to 7,000 odd levels.
9:00 a.m.: Rupee opens higher at 63.94 per dollar against Wednesday's close of 64.10.
8:35 a.m.: Below are the stocks which will be in focus today:
Bharti Airtel: Bharti Airtel's deal with Helios Towers Africa for sale of tower assets has been called-off partially. The deal was for divesting 3,100 telecom tower assets in four African countries. The deal has been called off only for towers in Tanzania & Tchad. Overall deal was valued at Rs 2,600 crore.
Sun Pharma: Sun Pharma has asked 18 top executives of Ranbaxy Labs to leave firm. The executives have been given a severance package and this order comes a year after the Sun Pharma acquired Ranbaxy.
Yes Bank: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday held that the right to nominate Board of directors of private sector lender Yes Bank has to exercise jointly by the promoters and not individually.
The court also held that the right of the wife of deceased co-promoter Ashok Kapur to nominate her daughter on the bank's Board could not be exercised without the consent of the other promoter, Rana Kapoor, who is currently the managing director and chief executive of the bank.
Orchid Chemicals: Orchid Chemicals has got US FDA nod for Gemifloxacin Mesylate tablets.
Torrent Pharma: FIPB has approved proposal to hike FII limit in Torrent Pharma to 35 per cent from 13.09 per cent.
Cipla: Cipla expects to double its sales of respiratory drugs by 2020.
SpiceJet: SpiceJet is offering 50,000 tickets on concessional rates for international travel.
