At 9.17 am, the BSE Sensex was trading 363 points or 0.61% higher at 59,907. Nifty50 was trading at 17,782, up 126 points or 0.72%.

“There is a near-term undercurrent of ‘risk-on’ in equity markets globally triggered by expectations that the central banks will start moderating their rate hikes. The cue has come from Canada where their central bank raised rates only by 50 bps against expectations of 75 bps,” V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at

said.

“Markets expect the Fed to moderate rate hikes starting December. Consequently, the dollar index has fallen below 110 and the 10-year US bond yield has dipped to 4.03%. This might nudge FPIs to turn buyers imparting strength to the market,” Vijayakumar added.

Nifty’s recent range of 17500-17800 looks set to be decisively broken on the upper-end today, he added. Financials, select autos and capital goods are well set to continue their recent rally while the spike in Brent crude above $95 is a concern, he said.

Among Sensex stocks, HDFC,

, , , and were the top gainers, rising about 1-1.5%. , , , , and also opened higher.

Sectorally, the Nifty Oil & Gas surged 1.24% and Nifty PSU Bank rose 1.09%. Nifty Metal and Nifty Realty also opened higher. In the broader market, Nifty Midcap50 advanced 0.69% and Smallcap50 increased 0.60%.

On Wednesday US Market’s Dow Jones Industrial Average ended flat with positive bias while, S&P 500 fell 0.74% and Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.04%.

In early trade in Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged 0.28% and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.07%, while South Korea’s Kospi surged 1.28%.

The Indian rupee rose 67 paise to 82.14 against US dollar in early trade on Thursday. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which tracks the movement of the greenback against a basket of six major world currencies, rose 0.08% to 109.78 level.