Opening Bell: Nifty, Sensex trade 0.50% higher in opening trade; Titan, ICICI Bank top gainers

After declining by 1 per cent each, the domestic equity benchmarks started on a positive note amid mixed global cues on the last trading day of the week on Friday. Headline indices Nifty50 and the Sensex opened at 17,797.60 and 59,776.10 respectively. Minutes into trading, Nifty surpassed 17,800 to hit day's high of 17,833.   

The 12-share banking index Bank Nifty after opening at 37,667.05 was trading higher by .75%. 

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Titan, ICICI Bank, Reliance, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, State Bank of India, ONGC, Grasim and Powergrid were top gainers on the two indices. HDFC, Cipla, Infosys, Dr Reddy's, Mahindra and Mahindra, Nestle India, Maruti were the laggards  

In the pre-open, the Sensex started over 170 points higher to 59,776 as 24 shares advanced and 6 declined on the 30-share index.  

Earlier, SGX Nifty hinted a positive to flat opening for the Indian markets as the Futures index on the Singaporean Exchange traded higher by 8 points or 0.04% around 9 am on Friday.  

In the early trade on Friday, the Asian indices were trading mixed as Japanese Nikkei 225 index traded lower by 0.42%, Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong Exchange was up 0.56% and Shanghai Composite was also trading 0.27 higher at 7.50 am on Friday.  

In the US market, all major Wall Street indices ended negative on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 170.64 points, or 0.47%, to 36,236.47, the S&P 500 lost 4.53 points, or 0.10%, to 4,696.05 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.31 points, or 0.13%, to 15,080.87.