MUMBAI: Equity benchmark indices pared more than half of their intraday gains on Thursday after profit booking in the final hours, even as sensex and Nifty had staged a sharp recovery earlier in the session on bottom fishing and positive cues from foreign institutional investors.After a 1,677-point fall on Wednesday, sensex opened higher at 76,576 and surged to an intraday high of 77,327 before late-session profit booking pared gains to 238 points or 0.3% at 76,742, with anintraday rise of 823 points from previous close. The Nifty opened at 23,929, hit a high of 24,135, and slipped to 23,928 before closing up 81 points or 0.3% at 23,963, gaining 253 points intraday.