Domestic stock markets started Friday's session on a strong note amid buying across sectors, tracking gains in Asian peers. The S&P BSE Sensex index rose as much as 161.27 points to touch 39,058.73 in early trade, and the NSE Nifty benchmark climbed to 11,640.35, up 43.45 points from the previous close. Advances in financials, IT, metal and pharma stocks supported the markets. Analysts awaited more large cap companies to report their earnings for the April-June period.

At 9:18 am, the Sensex traded 113.89 points - or 0.29 per cent - higher at 39,011.35, while the Nifty was up 31.50 points - or 0.27 per cent - at 11,628.40.

Top percentage gainers on the 50-scrip Nifty index at the time were Titan, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, UPL, Coal India and Indiabulls Housing Finance, trading between 1.16 per cent and 1.39 per cent higher.

HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Reliance Industries contributed the most to the advances in Sensex.

Reliance Industries and IndiGo will report their financial results for the quarter ended June 30 later in the day. HDFC Bank will report its earnings on Saturday.

Market regulator Sebi or Securities and Exchange Board of India on Thursday proposed to ramp up disclosure for auditors of listed companies. The decision by the regulator came after a number of firms abruptly resigned from audit assignments without citing sufficient reasons, leaving investors in the dark.

Sebi also proposed a format for disclosing reasons when the auditor of a listed entity or one of its material units resigns, including details of information the auditor failed to get from the company.

Meanwhile, equities in other Asian markets gained and the dollar sagged after a top Federal Reserve official all but cemented expectations of a US interest rate cut later this month.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 per cent, squaring the previous day's losses. Australian stocks added 0.4 per cent, South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.8 per cent and Japan's Nikkei advanced 1 per cent.

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said on Thursday that policymakers need to add stimulus early to deal with too-low inflation when interest rates are near zero and cannot wait for economic disaster to unfold, in a speech read as a strong argument in favour of quick action.

The comments made it a virtual certainty the US central bank would opt to cut interest rates by 25 basis points (bps) at its July 30-31 policy meeting and also fuelled expectations of an even deeper 50 basis points reduction.

On Thursday, the Sensex and Nifty had ended 0.81 per cent and 0.78 per cent lower respectively, snapping a three-day winning streak. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital markets, pulling out Rs 1,404.86 crore worth of funds on that day, provisional data from the NSE showed.

(With inputs from Reuters)