Indian equity benchmarks started the last session of the week mildly higher amid mixed moves across global markets, as two major US banks posted disappointing quarterly results but dovish remarks by two Fed officials eased some of the concerns about rising interest rates.

Share Market Live

NSE

Both headline indices rose as much as 0.6 percent in early deals. The Sensex gained 339.8 points points to touch 53,756 at the strongest level of the day, and the Nifty50 climbed to as high as 16,041.3, up 102.6 points from its previous close.

Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Cipla and Infosys rose the most among the 40 gainers in the Nifty50 basket.

Bharti Airtel, PowerGrid, Reliance Industries, SBI and TCS — up around one percent each — were also among the top blue-chip gainers.

On the other hand, Hindalco and HCL Tech — down around one percent each — were the top laggards. JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Shree Cement, down around half a percent each, were also among the losers.

"Inflation in India is trending down slowly and likely to decline further given softening commodity prices. This is a positive for India... Some of the foreign institutional investors have started to buy in segments where valuations have become attractive," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI) shares rose nearly four percent in early deals, a day after the IT company reported a strong set of results.

ALSO READ: Stocks to track today | Brokerage calls

The rupee came with six paise of the 80 level against the US dollar as it continued to hit lifetime lows amid sustained strength in the greenback overseas.

Overall market breadth was in favour of the bulls in early deals, as 747 stocks rose and 342 fell on BSE.

Global markets

Equities in other Asian markets saw mixed moves, mirroring the overnight session on Wall Street following disappointing results from JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1 percent in early hours.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 0.5 percent, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.7 percent and China's Shanghai Composite flat. S&P 500 futures were up 0.4 percent.

Catch latest market updates with CNBCTV18.com's blog