A benchmark index for Indian stocks belled the day on a strong note today and surged 112 points, about 40 minutes into trade.

At 9.37 a. m., the benchmark index Sensex, which opened at 16,988.29, was trading up 112.15 points at 17,083.85 as against its last closure at 16,971.7 points.

Meanwhile, the broad-based Nifty stood at 5,115.35 points as compared to its previous close at 5,080.25 points, an increase of 0.69%.

The BSE midcap index gained 1% and the BSE small cap index was trading 1.26% up.

On Thursday, Sensex marked its closure at 16,971, down 28 points, after trading in the range of 17,024 - 16,888.

In contrast, Nifty closed at 5,080, down 7 points, after touching an intraday high of 5,096 and an intraday low of 5049.

In the metal space, SAIL rose by 4.59%, Hindustan Zinc zoomed 5.4%, Sesa Goa climbed 7.6% and Tata Steel was up by 1.4%.

IT scrips witnessed some selling activity yesterday however, Polaris remained up 4.2% and Moser Baer gained 5.08%.

In the banking counters, Canara Bank surged 4.02%, LIC Hsg Finance gained 5.4%, Union Bank increased 2.7% and REC climbed 2.5%

Amon real estate space, Unitech went up 3.5% and IndiaBulls Real Estate surged 4.1%. (With Input from Agencies)