Indian equity benchmarks began Thursday's session mildly higher tracking gains across global markets, led by gains across most sectors. Analysts expected volatility to persist on Dalal Street ahead of a monthly expiry of derivatives contracts due by the end of the session.

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NSE

Globally, investors awaited updates from a key gathering of central bankers at the annual Jackson Hole symposium this week.

Both headline indices rose as much as half a percent in the first few minutes of trade. The Sensex gained 305.7 points to touch 59,391.2 at the strongest level of the day so far and the Nifty50 climbed to as high as 17,690, up 85.1 points from its previous close.

Financial, oil & gas, IT and FMCG shares were the biggest contributors to the rise in both main indices.

All of NSE's sectoral gauges held on to opening gains in early deals.

"The resilience of the Indian market even amidst global volatility can be attributed mainly to two factors: strong growth momentum in the economy and steady foreign institutional investor flows even when the dollar has been appreciating. FII inflows are steady since the market perception is that the dollar has peaked," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

FIIs have net purchased Indian shares worth Rs 18,103 crore so far this month, a period in which DIIs have net offloaded equities worth Rs 6,675.3 crore, according to provisional exchange data.

"Largecap stocks are better placed in the current phase. The resilience of the capital goods segment reflects the expanding capex cycle theme," Vijayakumar added.

Bharti Airtel shares rose as much as 3.9 percent to Rs 768 apiece on BSE, after the telecom operator said its promoter Bharti Telecom will buy a 3.33-percent stake from Singtel for about Rs 12,895 crore in 90 days.

Bharti Telecom is owned by Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal's family and Singtel.

Overall market breadth was strongly in favour of the bulls, as 2,114 stocks rose and 659 fell on BSE.

The rupee held steady a quarter of a percent above the 80 mark.

Global markets

Equities in other Asian markets were largely in the green on Thursday following a strong session on Wall Street overnight. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.4 percent at the last count. Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 0.6 percent.

S&P 500 futures were up 0.3 percent. On Wednesday, the three main US indices finished 0.2-04 percent higher led by energy stocks.

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