At 10:03 am, the Sensex traded 27.78 points - or 0.07 per cent - higher at 38,058.91 while the NSE Nifty was up 18.05 points - or 0.16 per cent - at 11,364.25.

Top percentage gainers on the 50-scrip index at the time were Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Wipro, Hero MotoCorp and Axis Bank, trading between 1.48 per cent and 2.37 per cent higher.

On the other hand, Bharti Infratel, HDFC, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Cipla and Adani Ports - trading between 1.31 per cent and 1.97 per cent lower - were the top laggards.

Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank contributed the most to the advances in Sensex, while SBI, HDFC and HDFC were the top drags.

Market breadth favoured gains with 834 stocks trading higher on the BSE and 628 struggling with losses. On the NSE, 873 stocks advanced while 671 declined.

The Nifty IT index - a sectoral gauge on the NSE comprising information technology stocks - added as much as 1.20 per cent, led by Infosys and Wipro in early deals.

Shares in Kotak Mahindra Bank rose as much as 2.11 per cent, a day after the private sector bank reported a 32.71 per cent rise in its net profit for the quarter ended June 30.

Dewan Housing Finance shares 4.10 per cent on the NSE, a day after the housing finance company said its audited results were largely in line with the unaudited net loss it reported on July 13. Dewan Housing Finance filed its long-delayed audited results for the quarter ended March 31 late on Monday, and revealed that its auditors had raised several red flags around its numbers.

Meanwhile, global stocks rose on expectations of policy easing by major central banks such as the Federal Reserve of the US. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.02 per cent. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.25 per cent. Overnight in the US, the S&P 500 index edged up towards a record high.