The market opens on a strong note after rupee played havoc in Wednesday’s trade. The Sensex opens up 182.91 points at 18735.03, and the Nifty adds 59.25 points at 5647.95. The Sensex is up 190.89 points at 18743.01, and the Nifty is at 5649.20 up 60.50 points. About 772 share markets have advanced, 251 shares declined, and 47 shares are unchanged.

India’s March quarter current account deficit was USD 18.1 billion, or 3.6 per cent of GDP, lower than expected and below the USD 21.7 billion deficit a year earlier, the Reserve Bank of India said on Thursday. The current account gap for the full fiscal year ending in March 2013 was USD 87.8 billion, which was 4.8 per cent of GDP, compared with USD 78.2 billion a year earlier. The balance of payments for the January-March quarter was a USD 300 million surplus, compared with a USD 600 million deficit a year earlier.

Sterlite Industries, Sun Pharma , Bajaj Auto , M&M and Hindalco are top gainers in the Sensex. Hero Motocorp and Tata Motors are laggrads. The market opens on a strong note after rupee played havoc in Wednesday’s trade. The Sensex opens up 182.91 points at 18735.03, and the Nifty adds 59.25 points at 5647.95.

The rupee came off its record high in early trade Thursday. It opened at 60.45 per dollar, up 26 paise compared to previous day’s closing of 60.71. On Wednesday, the rupee touched its all-time high of 60.76 per dollar due to defence and crude oil related demands.

“One can now say that global markets have stabilized, but the fall in rupee is disastrous. Given the global markets are, the Nifty might see some pullback in the opening trade today. It is also likely that we may see a rally as this series expires,” CNBC-TV18’s managing editor Udayan Mukherjee said. Asian markets were trading higher in the morning on Thursday.

US markets closed sharply higher after the weaker-than-expected final read on first-quarter gross domestic product diminished worries that the Fed would taper its stimulus measures in the immediate future. The CBOE volatility index declined near 17.

US treasury prices eased their gains after the government sold USD 35 billion in five-year notes at a high yield of 1.484 percent. On the economic data front, the US GDP expanded at a tepid 1.8 percent annual rate from a previously reported 2.4 percent pace. Economists had expected first-quarter GDP growth would be left unrevised at 2.4 percent.