The Sensex ended higher by 38 points at 19,894 mark and the Nifty was up by 8 points at 5,882 levels.
According to Mudit Goyal, technical analyst, SMC Global, “Short term and medium term is still positive for near term till nifty manages to trade above 5700 mark. For coming days, range bound and volatile sessions can be witness.
"Near term resistance is seen around 6050-6100 and Support is seen around 5800-5780.” In Asia, markets were left in limbo on Thursday as investors sweated out the latest battle over the U.S. budget, though Tokyo rallied as talk of a corporate tax cut resurfaced.
After a weak start, Japan's Nikkei erased all its losses to be up 1 per cent after Kyodo News reported the government would consider cutting corporate taxes, a proposal that has swung in and out of favour for weeks now.
The bounce in shares in turn weighed on the yen, already pressured by Japanese selling for month and quarter-end. The dollar popped up to 98.92 yen, from an early 98.46, while the euro gained almost a full yen to 133.80.
Back home, India's benchmark bond yield dropped on Thursday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) assured it would provide liquidity to the market and also undertake open market operations if necessary.
The partially convertible rupee was trading stronger after the RBI eased norms for providing swaps to banks that are borrowing funds overseas.
At 15:30 pm, rupee was trading at 62.15 versus its close of 62.44/45 on Wednesday and close to the day's high of 62.1225.
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