Mumbai, The key Indian equity indices shed major gains made during the initial trade on Thursday.

Healthy buying was witnessed in the metal stocks.

The BSE Sensex gained as much as 147 points to touch an intra-day high of 38,516.85.

At 10.19 a.m., it was trading at 38,417.63, higher by 48 points or 0.13 per cent from the previous close of 38,369.63.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchanges was trading at 11,346.25, higher by 37.85 points or 0.33 per cent from its previous close.

Manish Hathiramani, technical analyst at Deen Dayal Investments said that Nifty should be heading to levels closer to 11,500 during the course of this month's expiry.

"The support for the Nifty is at 11,150 so a closing below that level could be kept as a stop for all long trades," he said.