Sensex gains 1%; auto, banks, realty surge

Indian equity benchmarks rose 1% each in afternoon trade led by auto, banks and Reliance Industries. Shares of top commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors shot up 4.5% Jaguar & Land Rover's sales numbers for May were stable. Brokerages were expecting good sales numbers in May as compared to previous month.

The BSE benchmark moved up 162.92 points to 16,840.80 and the NSE benchmark was up 53 points at 5,107.50. European markets opened 0.5% higher on Friday.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries climbed 1.4% and engineering and construction major by sales Larsen & Toubro went up 0.9%.

The BSE Bankex surged 1.5% as country's largest lenders State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were up 0.9%, 2% and 1.6%, respectively.

Top two-wheeler major Hero Motocorp and largest coal mining company Coal India rallied 2% each.

Software services exporters Infosys and TCS, and cigarette major ITC and top telecom operator Bharti Airtel rose 0.6% each.

In the second line shares, HMT, Shree Global, Allcargo Global, India Cements and Gujarat Mineral shot up 5% while Corporation Bank, VST, KSK Energy Ventures, Himadri Chemical and DB Realty lost 3-5%.