The Sensex ended the day with gains of 50 points, while the Nifty ended the higher by 16 points. Among the top gainers in trade today were Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Cairn India, Reliance Energy and Bharti Airtel.

Heavyweight, Reliance Industries also lent support to the index by gaining more than one per cent. Metal stocks continued to rally in trade today with Sesa Goa and Tata Steel amongst the gainers.

Stocks that lost ground from the Nifty were Tata Power, Sun Pharma, Larsen, Hindalco, Maruti Suzuki and Punjab National Bank.

IT stocks continued to see buying interest with Infosys, TCS, Hexaware and Mphasis amongst the gainers.

Capital Goods stocks also saw frantic buying with gainers from the sector including AIA Engineering, Alstom India, Crompton Greaves.

Geometric Software jumped 3% after the software services firm acquired 3Cap Technologies GmbH (3Cap), a Munich, Germany-based specialist in electronics engineering for the automotive industry.

Shares of NMDC were weak after the mining major said it had reduced prices of iron ore to align the same with landed imports.

Jet Airways jumped more than 4.5% after reports that Etihad is likely to take a final call on investing in an Indian airline, possibly Jet, in its next board meeting.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia ended the day higher. The Singapore's Strait Times, the Hong Kong's Hang Sang and the Taiwan Weighted all ended the day higher.

Markets in Europe were marginally down on profit booking after the sharp rally witnessed on Wednesday. Indian markets are expected to track global markets and move in tandem. Investment experts believe the markets will exhibit volatility in the coming weeks.

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