Mumbai, Jan 4 (IANS): Indian stocks ended higher on Friday despite negative global cues as financials stocks led the gains on major equity indices.

In addition, the sentiments were lifted as the Indian currency strengthened by over 30 paise on Friday to trade at 69.85 per dollar, against the previous close of 70.19 per dollar.

The gains by the domestic currency impacted export-oriented sectors as IT stocks declined by 1.15 per cent and the Teck sectors lost 0.58 per cent.

Index pivotals finance and banking stocks held firm.

"Asian stocks including India have sold off a bit in the last month and hence the incremental effect of fresh negative news is limited. Despite global peers falling, Indian markets have risen today as we are awaiting fresh local cues and FII fund flow behavior," Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities said.

The S&P BSE Sensex settled 181.39 points or 0.51 per cent higher at 35,695.10 after touching an intra-day high of 35,744.20 and a low of 35,382.08.

The NSE Nifty50 closed at 55.10 points or 0.52 per cent down at 10,727.35.

Earlier, Chinese factory data, along with India's, suggested a global growth slowdown, which was further magnified after a weak US factory data outcome on Thursday.

The latest addition to the worries was tech major Apple's announcement of cutting its financial forecast, partly blaming US trade tensions with China along with a slowdown in the Chinese economy.

Apple is one of the world's largest companies by market value and it was the first time years that it sharply cut its growth forecast.

Stock-wise, Bharti Airtel and Yes Bank gained over 3 per cent, the most on the Sensex. Other top gainers were Vedanta, Tata Motors, Tata Motors (DVR) and inched up in the range fo 2 to 3 per cent.

In contrast, HCL lost the most, 1.55 per cent, followed by TCS declining 1.19 per cent while Infosys lost over 1 per cent. IndusInd Bank and Hero MotoCorp shed up to 1 per cent.