MUMBAI: Equity benchmark indices were in the green during early hours on Friday with auto and banking stocks seeing good gains.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 236 points or 0.41 per cent at 58,089 while the Nifty 50 rose by 68 points or 0.39 per cent to 17,302.
Sectoral indices were mixed with Nifty FMCG and metal down marginally. But Nifty PSU bank and realty rose by 1.5 per cent each, auto by 1.1 per cent and IT by 0.4 per cent.
Among stocks, Eicher Motors accelerated by 3.7 per cent to Rs 2,834.45 per share while Hero MotoCorp rose by 1.7 per cent and Bajaj Auto by 1.2 per cent.
The other major gainers were Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, ITC and Wipo. But among the losers were HDFC Life, UltraTech Cement, Hindustan Unilever and Hindalco.
Meanwhile, Asian share markets were mixed as concerns lingered over the Chinese economy after a run of soft data.
Japan's Nikkei added 1.84 per cent while South Korea gained 0.64 per cent. But Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 0.54 per cent.