Mumbai: Erasing early day losses, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed 81 points higher Thursday as traders rolled over positions to the September series of futures and options following expiry of the August series. Realty, health care and banking stocks were the best performers.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 17,433.50 points, closed at 17,571.81 points (provisional), 0.46 percent or 81 points up from its previous day's close at 17,490.81 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 17,605.51 points and a low of 17,367.55 points in intra-day trade.

The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange was ruling 0.61 percent up at 5,320.20 points.

On the sectoral front, the BSE realty index was up 24.72 points followed by health care index, up 56.58 points, and banking index, up 85.01 points.

The major gainers were Hindalco Inds, up 2.60 percent at 106.45; Tata Motors, up 1.71 percent at 238; HDFC, up 1.68 percent at 727.20; Cipla, up 1.56 percent at 372; and BHEL, 1.43 percent at 219.50.

The main Sensex losers were Jindal Steel, down 2.43 percent at 351.10; Gail, down 2.38 percent at 356.10; Tata Steel, down 2 percent at 366.90; Hero MotoCorp, down 1.47 percent at 1,822.50; and Maruti Suzuki, down 1.42 percent at 1,151.90.

Other Asian markets closed lower. Japan's Nikkei closed 0.95 percent down while Shanghai's composite index ended 0.03 percent lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 1.19 percent down.

At the closing bell here, European markets were also trading lower. France's CAC was down 0.26 percent and so was Germany's DAX, down by 0.59 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.12 percent.