Mumbai, Jan 27 (IANS): Inflow of foreign funds and hopes of incentives in the upcoming Union budget pushed the Indian equities higher on Friday.

However, profit booking pared some gains and led the key indices to provisionally close the day's trade with gains of around half a per cent each.

Healthy buying was witnessed in banking, consumer durables and automobile stocks.

The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 38.50 points or 0.45 per cent, to 8,641.25 points.

The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 27,761.03 points, provisionally closed at 27,882.46 points (at 3.30 p.m.) -- up 174.32 points or 0.63 per cent from the previous close at 27,708.14 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 27,980.39 points and a low of 27,759.48 points during the intra-day trade.

The BSE market breadth was marginally tilted in favour of the bulls -- with 1,400 advances and 1,378 declines.

On Wednesday, the NSE Nifty rose by 126.95 points or 1.50 per cent, to close at 8,602.75 points, while the BSE Sensex was up 332.56 points or 1.21 per cent.