The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 290 points at 9,298, but soon pared gains and slipped into the negative zone to a low of 8,894 - down 404 points from the day's open.
The Sensex, thereafter, continued to swing between zones within the same range, and finally ended with a gain of 36 points at 9,045.
The BSE Metal index surged 6.5% to 4,871. The Oil & Gas index gained 2.8% at 5,678. The Realty and Healthcare indices, however, slipped over 3% each to 1,934 and 2,692, respectively.
The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 2,498 stocks traded, 1,320 declined, 1,103 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.
INDEX MOVERS...
Hindalco zoomed over 20% to Rs 54.
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ACC soared nearly 9% to RS 482, and Mahindra & Mahindra rallied 8% to Rs 302.
Reliance Industries surged 5.5% to Rs 1,217. Tata Motors gained 4.6% at Rs 162.
Wipro and ICICI Bank advanced over 4% each to Rs 249 and Rs 349, respectively. Jaiprakash Assocaites added 3.8% to Rs 62.
Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel moved up around 3% each to Rs 189 and Rs 628, respectively.
ONGC, Infosys and BHEL were up around 2.5% each at Rs 661, Rs 1,312 and Rs 1,175, respectively.
...AND THE SHAKERS
Reliance Communications tumbled 10.5% to Rs 193.
DLF slumped over 8% to Rs 200. Satyam plunged 6.5% to Rs 280, and Ranbaxy shed 5.5% at Rs 181.
Hindustan Unilever slipped nearly 5% to Rs 208. HDFC Bank dropped over 4% to Rs 924.
HDFC and Reliance Infrastructure declined over 3% each to Rs 1,495 and rs 424, respectively.
Grasim and Larsen & Toubro were down over 2.5% each at Rs 1,001 and Rs 755, respectively.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 276.50 crore followed by Educomp Solutions (Rs 172.30 crore), Reliance (Rs 138.50 crore), HDFC (Rs 109 crore) and Hindalco (Rs 107.80 crore).
Hindalco led the volume chart with trades of around 2.20 crore shares followed by Unitech (1.60 crore), Suzlon (1.05 crore), IFCI (77 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources (65.70 lakh).