Indian equity benchmarks rallied for the third day running
on Friday, with the Sensex gaining over 300 points amid mixed global market
trends.

The BSE Sensex advanced 303.38 points or 0.56% to close at
54,481.84. During the day, it jumped 448.68 points or 0.82% to 54,627.14. The
NSE Nifty surged by 87.70 points or 0.54% to end at 16,220.60.

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The broader indices ended in green with the BSE Mid cap
index up by 0.20%, while Small cap index was up by 0.28%. On the sectoral front,
Capital Goods up by 2.23%, Power up by 1.71%, Utilities up by 1.58%,
Industrials up by 1.51% and Bankex up by 0.66%, while Metal down by 0.97%,
Basic Materials down by 0.11%, Telecom down by 0.09% and Realty down by 0.01%
were the top losing indices on BSE.

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Major gainers from the Sensex pack were Larsen up by 4.72%,
Power Grid Corp up by 2.94%, NTPC up by 2.21%, ICICI Bank up by 1.85%, Axis
bank up by 1.85%, Dr Reddys Labs up by 1.50%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.25%, Nestle
up by 1.21%, Infosys up by 1.02% and Sun Pharma up by 0.89%.

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Among the laggards were Tata Steel down by 1.62%, IndusInd Bank
down by 1.47%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.43%, TCS down by 0.67%, Wipro down by
0.38%, Asian Paints down by 0.36%, HDFC down by 0.31%, HCL Tech down by 0.29%
and Mahindra down by 0.06%.

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The rupee declined by 10 paise to close at 79.23 against
the US dollar.

In Asian markets, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul ended higher,
while Shanghai closed marginally lower.

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European stock markets were trading lower in mid-session
deals. The US equity markets has ended higher on Thursday.

“The present rally is driven partly by expectations
that given the steady decline in commodity prices, inflation will start showing
a declining trend enabling central banks to go a bit slow on hiking rates, and
partly by short covering,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment
Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

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Brent crude, the international oil benchmark slipped 0.12%
to $104.5 per barrel.

According to stock exchange data, foreign institutional
investors remained net sellers on Thursday, offloading shares worth Rs 925.22
crore.