The benchmark Sensex on Thursday ended with a marginal gain of about 8 points at 27507.54 in the first trading session of the New Year in lacklustre trade.
Traders said direction-less investors confined their commitments to select stocks, having strong fundamentals amid most Asian financial markets remaining closed. On Wednesday, markets closed higher for the fourth straight day and wrapped up 2014 with the best annual gain in five years.
Telecom, auto, infrastructure and metal sector stocks saw some activity on Thursday.
After a lower start at 27485.77, the 30-share BSE Sensex slipped further to 27395.34. However, losses were wiped off on the back of gains in select blue-chips towards the fag-end.
The Sensex closed at 27507.54 after touching a high of 27545.61.
Bharti Airtel counter emerged the top gainer among Sensex stocks by surging 2.86 per cent after the telecom regulator recommended base price for Rs.2,720 crore/megahertz for 3G mobile spectrum.
The 50-share Nifty on the National Stock Exchange edged up by 1.30 points to 8284 after moving between 8294.70 and 8248.75 intra-day.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors bought shares worth Rs.481.08 crore on Wednesday.
Among auto stocks, Maruti Suzuki gained after it reported a 20.8 per cent increase in total sales in December. Other auto stocks such as M&M, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp and Tata Motors also ended in positive terrain. In metal space, Sesa Sterlite was up 2.34 per cent.
