The Indian equity benchmark opened in the green on the last trading day of the trading week ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s key interest rate decision. The central bank’s monetary policy committee is widely expected to announce a 90 basis point hike in the repo rate, or the key rate on commercial bank lending, since May on Friday.

Both major indexes were up 0.3% in the first few minutes of trading. The Sensex rose 195 points to 58,493.8, its highest level so far, while the Nifty50 climbed to 17,438.5, up 56.5 points from its previous close.

A total of 37 stocks in the Nifty50 basket opened higher. Mahindra & Mahindra, Divi’s, Bharti Airtel, Infosys and IndusInd Bank were among the top gainers.

HDFC Life, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HCL Tech, SBI Life, Grasim and Shree Cement – all up about 0.5% – were among the top blue-chip gainers.

On the other hand, ONGC, Britannia, Tata Consumer, Cipla, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv and Nestle – down as much as 1% – fell the most. Reliance, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel and Hindustan Unilever were the biggest contributors to gains in both indices.

Nifty Bank, which tracks the results of the country’s 12 major banks, including SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank, was up 0.3% in early trade. Half of the bankers in a CNBC-TV18 poll expected the RBI to announce a hike in the repo rate – the key rate it offers commercial banks by 35 basis points later in the day.

“The RBI rate action on Friday is unlikely to affect the market. The most likely scenario for a 30-35bps rate hike is known and discounted. Markets will be watching RBI inflation and year-end GDP growth. Comments on economic indicators such as March 2023 and the current account deficit,” said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services. Overall market breadth favoured bulls, with 1,733 BSE stocks advancing and 772 declining.