MUMBAI: The Indian benchmark indices opened higher on Friday, buoyed by transformative rate reductions announced by the GST Council across sectors as buying was seen in the auto, IT and PSU bank shares in the early trade.
At around 9.38 am, Sensex was trading 140.72 points or 0.17 per cent up at 80, 858.73 while the Nifty added 52 point or 0.21 per cent at 24, 786.30.
Nifty Bank was up 4.05 points or 0.01 per cent at 54, 079.50 The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 57, 291.20 after adding 332.05 points or 0.58 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 17, 704.70 after gaining 82.75 points or 0.47 per cent.
According to analysts, Nifty indicated an optimistic positive move, with anticipation of positive cues from the GST rate outcome, which would decide the further course of the market in the coming days.
"The index would need a decisive move past the important 50EMA level at the 24, 800 zone, which can trigger a fresh further upward move along with the broader markets beginning to participate to support the benchmark indices, " said Vaishali Parekh, Vice President (Technical Research), PL Capital.
The 24, 500 zone shall continue to remain as the important support zone for the index, she added.
Overall, the market is showing resilience within a consolidation range. With improving technical momentum and steady domestic inflows, the near-term bias remains positive, said experts.
"Traders should adopt a buy-on-dips strategy and focus on stock-specific opportunities in leadership sectors like banking, IT, and auto, " said Mandar Bhojane from Choice Broking.
Meanwhile, in the Sensex pack, M&M, Trent, Tata Motors, Asian Paints, Power Grid and Maruti Suzuki were the top gainers. Whereas, ITC, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Sun Pharma and HDFC Bank were the top losers.
In the Asian markets, Bangkok, Japan, Seoul, Hong Kong and China were trading in green.