Indian equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty50 began Thursday's session nearly unchanged despite positive global cues ahead of a key inflation reading from the US that could give the Fed room to dial back on its current path of aggressive interest rate hikes. Gains in IT, consumer durables and auto shares pushed the headline indices higher though losses in oil & gas and metal stocks limited the upside. 

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Both main gauges climbed up as much as 0.2 per cent in the first few minutes of trade. The Sensex gained 139.2 points to touch 60,244.7 at the strongest level of the day so far, and the Nifty50 went up to as high as 17,929.7, adding 34 points to its previous close, after a mixed start. The 30-scrip index began the day down 22.5 points at 60,083 though the Nifty opened with a gain of 25.2 points at 17,920.9.

Infosys and HCL Tech shares boosted the Nifty IT index, with both the IT majors due to report their financial results later in the day. This week, TCS reported a mixed set of results.  

A total of 32 stocks in the Nifty50 basket moved higher in early trade. HCL Tech, Titan, Wipro, Grasim, Coal India, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Life, SBI Life and NEstle -- trading between 0.6 per cent and 1.5 per cent higher -- were the top gainers. On the other hand, Divi's, BPCL, Asian Paints, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Apollo Hospitals and Axis Bank -- quoting between 0.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent -- were the top blue-chip laggards.

Overall market breadth favoured the bulls, with an advance-decline ratio of 2:1 as 1,806 stocks rose and 910 fell on BSE. 

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