Indian equities recovered to some extent on Thursday covering earlier losses.

It was a good day for bourses as they marked their closures on a positive note backed by Hero Honda Motors, JP Associates and ICICI Bank.

Auto, oil & gas, realty and metal stocks remained the top gainers of the day. The index continued to trade higher owing to hefty buying action witnessed across board. The bourses rallied further as European market belled the day positively and lastly ended on a cheerful note.

During the day, Sensex hit an intraday high of 16,202.87.

Finally, the 30-share index, BSE Sensex closed at 16,152.59 after rising 230.42 points with 28 components recording gain.

In the meantime, Nifty gained 69.65 points to end the day at 4,826.85 with 45 components registering rise.

During the last week of January, food inflation moved closer to 18% on the back of increasing costs of potato and pulses.

The wholesale price-based food inflation went up to 17.94% for the week ended on January 30, as against 17.56% during the previous week.

The major gainers in the Sensex pack were Hero Honda, JP Asso, Mah&Mah, RIL, Tata Motors and ICICI Bank.

In contrast, the top losers of the day included Tata Power and Bharti Airtel.

The Oil & Gas index remained in limelight and gained198.38 points 9,812.63, followed by Auto index, which surged 145.90 points at 6,963.15 and the Realty index, which shot up 65.76 points at 3,384.40.

The initial public offering (IPO) index stood at 1,938.82 after losing 0.65. The top losers included Cox and Kings (India), Gammon Infra, JSW Energy, Oil India and Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India.

Indian Stock Markets would remain close on February 12 owing to Mahashivratri.