After consolidating for two straight sessions, frontline stocks opened with strong gains today. The Sensex rallied more than 100 points in early trades while the Nifty moved close to 3600.

Asian markets have recovered from yesterday's fall on hopes that the North Korean nuclear test would not have much of an impact on other Asian economies.

Sensex opened at 12416 and saw a high of 12482. The index is trading higher by 74 points at 12439 at 11.10 AM.

Nifty opened at 3567 and touched a high of 3597. The index is now trading higher by 19 points at 3586.

Suzlon Energy, which has been correcting for a couple of sessions, is the best performer among index stocks with gains of close to 2.5 per cent.

Among auto stocks, Tata Motors is continuing the rally with gains of well over a per cent and Maruti has gained more than 1.5 per cent.

Infosys has gained more than a per cent ahead of its results due tomorrow. The stock had rallied close to 2.5 per cent in opening trades on the back of a 4 per cent gain in ADR prices.

HDFC Bank and HDFC, which were under pressure in recent sessions, have recovered and gained more than a per cent each.

Bharti has gained well over a per cent on expectations that the group would announce its foreign partner, rumoured to be Tesco, for its retail foray. It is not clear if Bharthi Airtel, the telecom entity, would have any interest in the retail business.

ACC, which underperformed other cement stocks in recent sessions, has also added more than a per cent.

Dr Reddy's has gained more than 2 per cent on some positive news flows regarding early launch of the generic version of a key drug.

IPCL is the other major gainer, trading nearly 1.5 per cent higher.

There are only 5 losers among Nifty stocks. HLL is under pressure for the third session and is down nearly a per cent.

Tata Power has lost more than 0.5 per cent while ONGC, Sun Pharma and Tata Steel are trading with modest losses.

Mid-caps and small caps are outperforming the large caps by a wide margin for the third successive session. Strong buying momentum is evident across sectors even as some of the recent gainers continue to correct.

The NSE mid-cap index is now trading with gains of around 0.65 per cent. BSE mid-cap index has added over 0.9 per cent and the small-cap index is the best performer with gains of 1.25 per cent. Market breadth on the NSE is very positive with nearly 5 stocks advancing for every declining stock.

Mukand Engineering, Gati, GM Breweries, Induj Enertech, GKW, BPL, Oil Country Tubular, Petron Engineering, Flex Chemicals and BSEL Infrastructure are among the major mid-cap gainers.

Shringar Cinema, Provogue, Assam Company, Unitech and Shriram City Union are the major mid-cap losers.