The key benchmark indices pared gains in afternoon trade led by a decline in oil & gas and capital goods stocks. The Sensex was up 23 points at16,813 levels and the Nifty was trading 10 points higher at 4,998.The RIL stock was down over 3 per cent after Hardy Oil said it has not found any hydrocarbon in D9 block exploration well of KG basin. RIL owns 90 per cent interest in D9 block while Hardy oil has 10 per cent.
On the sectoral front, the BSE oil & gas index fell 2.3 per cent and the capital goods index dropped 1.4 per cent.
Among the Sensex stocks, ITC led the gainers. The stock was up 4.3 per cent. The company today said its net profit was up at Rs 1010 crore in the Sepetember quarter from Rs 803 crore on a year-on-year basis.
RIL, however, fell 3.4 per cent and Grasim was down 3.1 per cent.
In US, stocks posted big gains on Thursday as investors snapped up financial shares after several banks said they weren't seeing as many loans go bad.
The Dow rose 131.95, or 1.3 percent, to 10,081.31. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 11.51, or 1.1 percent, to 1,092.91. The Nasdaq rose 14.56, or 0.7 percent, to 2,165.29.
Asian stock markets rose on Friday, spurred by another batch of optimistic quarterly reports from major companies in the U.S. and Asia even as worries remained that this year's rally has overshot reality.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average was up 48.69, or 0.5 percent, at 10,315.86 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 327.42, or 1.5 percent, to 22,537.94. South Korea's Kospi advanced 0.7 percent to 1,641.03, while China's Shanghai index climbed 2.3 percent.