The Sensex rallied about 148 points to 27,856 in early session today, maintaining its positive form for the fourth day as the February derivatives series took off on a strong footing amid positive Asian cues.

The 30-share Sensex, which gained 673.64 points in the previous three straight sessions, added 147.57 points, or 0.53 per cent, at 27,855.71. All sectoral indices of BSE led by oil and gas, power and PSU were in the positive zone, rising by up to 1.34 per cent. The NSE Nifty jumped 40.75 points, or 0.47 per cent, to 8,643.50.

Microsoft reported a rise in profits over the past quarter, showing gains in cloud computing and other new areas of focus as it absorbed the LinkedIn social network.

The US tech giant on Thursday said profits rose 3.6 percent in the second fiscal quarter to $5.2 billion, while revenues edged up one percent to $24 billion.

Aditya Birla Group plans to invest Rs 7,000 crore in the next two years in Andhra Pradesh on expanding existing businesses, Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Friday.

The conglomerate already has investments of Rs 10,000 crore in the state across sectors like telecom, retail and cement.

Toshiba Corp's board on Friday approved plans to make its core memory chip business a separate company and seek outside investment in it, aiming to avoid being crippled by an upcoming multi-billion dollar writedown for its US nuclear business.

The drastic step will be only one of many tough choices the Japanese conglomerate must take to survive, as the proceeds are set to cover just part of the charge for cost overruns at a newly acquired US power plant construction business - a figure that local media has put at 680 billion yen.

The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties.

The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing US Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria.

Terming the overall Points of Interconnect (PoI) situation as ‘better’ than before, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said Vodafone and Idea Cellular are meeting norms in all circles.

For Bharti Airtel, the congestion level is beyond the permissible limit in eight circles.

Largest private sector lenders Kotak Mahindra Bank on Wednesday announced its profit on standalone basis up by 38.6 percent year-on-year to Rs. 880 crore in October-December quarter.

The profit is supported by revenue, other income, operating profit and lower provisions. Asset quality improvement and strong earnings lifted stock price nearly percent percent intraday Wednesday.

Maruti Suzuki posted a 47.46% rise in its net profit to Rs 1,744.5 crore in Oct-Dec 2016 compared to the Rs 1,183.5 crore profit posted in the same period in 2015.

According to the company quarterly results released today, the company's total income from operations was up at Rs 19,173.1 crore compared to Rs 16,957.6 crore posted in the same period last year, 13.07% increase.

German luxury car maker Mercedes- Benz today launched new edition of its compact cars A-Class and B-Class models priced up to Rs 30.35 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

The launch of the 'Night Edition' of the A-Class and the B-Class strengthens the new generation cars portfolio, Mercedes-Benz India said in a statement.

The benchmark BSE Sensex surged over 105 points and the NSE Nifty reclaimed the 8,500-mark in early trade on Wednesday as traders continued buying, tracking a firm trend in other Asian bourses following record US markets' closing on Tuesday.

Short-covering of bets, with Wednesday being the last session of January expiry in the derivatives segment, kept the overall tempo up.

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