Indian shares opened higher on Friday, led by lenders such as Axis Bank and Yes Bank amid sustained overseas inflows.

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At 9:20 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 38,477, up 90 points, while the broader NSE Nifty50 was ruling at 11,554, up 34 points. Banking stocks index, Bank Nifty, was trading up 0.45 percent to 29,957, after hitting the 30,000 mark earlier in the session.

Indian financial markets were shut on Friday on account of Holi.

The benchmark indices have rallied for seven out of eight sessions, as foreign investors have been pouring funds into Indian equities amid optimism that the current coalition government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would return to power after the general election starting next month.

On a net basis, foreign institutional investors bought shares worth a net of Rs 1,771.61 crore on Wednesday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers to the tune of Rs 1,323.17 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.

The top gainers included Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, Powergrid, Indiabulls Housing Finance, and NTPC while TCS, Adani Ports, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Infratel, and Vedanta were among the laggards.

Nifty Bank rose nearly half a percent with the index closing in on 30,000-level. Federal Bank, IDFC First Bank, Punjab National Bank, Yes Bank, and Axis Bank were the top performing stocks in the sector.

Nifty Bank, Nifty Fin Services, Nifty Auto were the top sectors trading in the green while Nifty IT and Nifty Metal were the worst performing sectors.

Aviation stocks were in focus with Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Indigo gaining in the opening trade. SpiceJet surged over 11 percent on reports that the government has offered SpiceJet to take control of grounded Jet Airways aircraft. Jet Airways and Indigo also rose over 2 percent each on rising market share.

Kansai Nerolac fell nearly 5 percent after CLSA downgraded the stock to 'sell' from 'underperform' and lowered the target price to Rs 385 from Rs 450.

Globally, Asian shares advanced on Friday after upbeat data and optimism in the tech sector lifted Wall Street stocks, helping calm some of the jitters sparked by the Federal Reserve’s cautious outlook on the world’s biggest economy. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.25 percent while Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.3 percent.