After four days of losses, The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark Sensex markets closed 51 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 IT 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 17,541.64 points, 0.29 percent or 50.83 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 closed 0.52 percent up at 5,315.05 points.

On the sectoral front, the BSE realty index was up 27.35 points followed by health care index, up 55.12 points, and IT index, up 40.17 points.

The major gainers were Hindalco, up 2.27 percent at Rs.106.10; TCS, up 1.68 percent at Rs.1,365.05; Cipla, up 1.57 percent at Rs.372.05; Tata Motors, up 1.26 percent at Rs.236.95; and Wipro, 1.23 percent at Rs.369.10.

The main Sensex losers were Gail, down 2.32 percent at Rs.356.35; Maruti Suzuki, down 2.13 percent at Rs.1,143.65; Tata Steel, down 2.06 percent at Rs.366.70; Jindal Steel, down 2.03 percent at Rs.352.55; and Sterlite Inds, down 1.46 percent at Rs.98.15.

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 0.47 percent and so was Germany's DAX, down by 0.84 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.19 percent.