The Sensex failed to hold on to its early momentum and came off the day's high of 29,065.31 due to fresh selling in power, infrastructure, oil & gas and PSU stocks amid firm European cues.

At 3.20 pm, the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 15.7 points or 0.05 per cent at 28,880.41 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 10.7 points or 0.12 per cent at 8,937.60.

Among BSE sectoral indices, power index fell the most by 0.68 per cent, followed by infrastructure 0.38 per cent, oil & gas and PSU 0.26 per cent each. On the other hand, IT index was up 1.65 per cent, TECk 1.59 per cent, realty 0.84 per cent and consumer durables 0.4 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Wipro (+2.88%), TCS (+2.7%), Bharti Airtel (+1.84%), Infosys (+1.53%) and ITC (+1.02%), while the major losers were Reliance (-1.83%), Adani Ports (-1.35%), Asian Paints (-1.15%), Power Grid (-0.97%) and Maruti (-0.81%).

Regains 29K-mark

The Sensex reclaimed the 29,000-mark at mid-session on sustained buying by domestic institutions, robust foreign fund inflows and short-covering by investors ahead of February series F&O expiry.

The Sensex had rallied by 709.15 points in the previous five sessions on the back of strong foreign fund inflows and sizeable buying by domestic institutional investors.

Shares of Bharti Airtel rose 11 per cent to a one-year high after the telecom operator said it will acquire the business of Telenor India for an undisclosed sum in all seven circles where it holds spectrum.

Other telecom shares such as Idea Cellular rose 7 per cent, Reliance Communication gained 3.92 per cent and Tata Teleservices went up by 4.52 per cent.

Asian shares

Asian stocks eased from a 19-month high on Thursday, while the dollar made an uneven recovery from losses suffered after Federal Reserve minutes indicated a cautious approach to raising US interest rates.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged down almost 0.1 per cent having jumped to its highest level on Wednesday since July 2015.