Mumbai, July 8: Market benchmarks started the trade on a positive note on Friday, with the Sensex climbing 448.68 points, mirroring a bullish trend in global equity markets.

The 30-share BSE benchmark advanced 448.68 points to 54,627.14 in early deals. The broader NSE Nifty went higher by 142.6 points to 16,275.50.

From the Sensex pack, Larsen & Toubro, M&M, Axis Bank, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major gainers in early trade.

Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance and Titan were among the laggards.Elon Musk's $44 Billion Twitter Deal Reportedly in Serious Trouble.

In Asia, markets in Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong were trading in the green.

The US markets had ended higher on Thursday.

"The present rally is driven partly by expectations that given the steady decline in commodity prices, inflation will start showing a declining trend enabling central banks to go a bit slow on hiking rates, and partly by short covering," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

The BSE benchmark climbed 427.49 points or 0.80 per cent to settle at 54,178.46 on Thursday. The Nifty advanced 143.10 points or 0.89 per cent to 16,132.90. Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude gained 0.13 per cent to USD 104.79 per barrel. Foreign institutional investors were net sellers on Thursday, offloading shares worth Rs 925.22 crore, as per exchange data.