Indices continue to scale fresh highs on account of strong foreign inflows and budget optimism.

By 9:30, the Sensex was higher by 104 points at 26,066 mark and the Nifty gained by 22 points at 7,774 levels. Sensex has breached 26,000 mark for the first time today

Market is expected to remain positive on hopes that the Narendra Modi-led government will announce a slew of measures to revive economic growth in its first Union Budget on Thursday.

According to analysts, the up-move in the market could be led by gains in the oil and gas, banking and infrastructure sectors. These are expected to benefit from the reform announcements likely to be made in the Budget.

On the global front, Asian stock markets got off to a slow start on Monday after a U.S. market holiday but held near three-year highs on optimism about the U.S. economy, with investors now shifting their focus to corporate earnings.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed, staying just under Friday's peak and two percentage point below its 2011 peak, having risen about 7 percent so far this year.

Japan's Nikkei average was little changed after closing at a 5-1/2-month high on Friday.

US markets remained close on Friday, 4 July 2104, on account of Independence Day.

Back home, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 943.19 crore on Friday, 4 July 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

The rupee is trading at 59.85 versus the dollar, lower than previous day’s close.

On the sectoral front, BSE IT index has surged by over 1% followed by counters like Realty, Power and Metal, all gaining nearly 1% each. However, banking, oil & gas and FMCG shares are trading marginally lower.

The main gainers on the Sensex are Tata Power, Infosys, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Sesa Sterlite, Tata Steel, TCS and Cipla.

Tata Power Company is trading higher by 2.5% at Rs 110 on BSE after the company said it has signed an option deal to sell a 5% in coal miner PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) to get additional cash flow as well as to reduce its consolidated debt.

On the losing side, ONGC, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, RIL and Dr Reddy’s Labs have declined between 0.3-1%.

The broader markets continue their outperformance in comparison with the benchmark indices- BSe Midcap and Smallcap indices have gained by nearly 1% each.

The market breadth in BSE remains firm with 1,075 shares advancing and 377 shares declining.