Equity benchmark indices were in the green during early hours on Thursday as Asian shares moved up on encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial.
At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 965 points or 2.95 per cent at 33,686 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 281 points or 2.94 per cent at 9,835.
Except for Nifty pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were on the positive side with Nifty auto up by 5.1 per cent, metal by 4 per cent and IT by 3.3 per cent.
Among stocks, Tata Motors witnessed a dramatic spurt of 11.2 per cent to Rs 87.75 per share. Maruti gained by 5 per cent and Mahindra & Mahindra by 4.7 per cent.
Metal majors too saw handsome gains with Vedanta up by 6.3 per cent, Hindalco by 4.8 per cent, JSW Steel by 4.6 per cent and Tata Steel by 4.5 per cent.
The other prominent winners were Infosys, HCL Technologies, GAIL and ICICI Bank. However, Sun Pharma and Hindustan Lever traded with a negative bias.
Meanwhile, Asian stocks rose to a fresh seven-week high, lifted by encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial.
Reports quoting Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, as saying that Gilead's anti-viral remdesivir will become the standard of care for COVID-19 after early results from a trial seemed to show it helped speed recovery.
The news rallied Wall Street a day earlier and lifted MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares excluding Japan by 0.8 per cent to its highest since mid-March.
Japan's Nikkei jumped by 2.5 per cent to a seven-week high. The Shanghai Composite rose by 1 per cent while markets in Hong Kong and South Korea were closed for public holidays.
( With inputs from ANI )