However, fresh monsoon worries dragged the index into the red. The Sensex was volatile through the trading day and managed only brief recoveries. Towards the end the index touched a low of 14,902 - down 515 points from the day's high.
The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 150 points at 15,010. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,438, down 43 points.
The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices underperformed. The former dropped 1.7% to 5,340 while the latter slipped 2% to 6,073.
Among the sectoral indices auto was worst hit and ended down 4.5% at 5,210. However, the IT index was up 2.6% at 4,022.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Tractor maker, Mahindra & Mahindra crashed 9% to Rs 758. ACC plunged 6.5% to Rs 810.
Auto stocks - Hero Honda, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki tumbled 3.5% each to Rs 1,425, Rs 401 and Rs 1,251, respectively.
Hindustan Unilever shed 3.5% to Rs 260. Grasim, ITC, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel dropped 2.5% to Rs 2,641, Rs 224, Rs 719 and Rs 374, respectively.
HDFC, Larsen & toubro, Jaiprakash Associates, SBI, DLF, BHEL, Reliance Communications and HDFC Bank have dropped 1-2% each.
....AND MOVERS
TCS rallied 6% to Rs 539. Wipro and Infosys surged 2.5% each to Rs 513 and Rs 2,087, respectively.
Tata Power and ONGC added marginally.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS...
ICICI Bank topped the combined value chart with a turnover of Rs 881.91 crore. It was followed by Reliance (Rs 796.26 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs 729.81 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 714.45 crore) and Suzlon (Rs 685.87 crore).
The combined volume chart was led by Suzlon with trades of over 84 million shares, followed by Unitech (70.38 million), Mahindra Satyam (64.63 million), Ispat Industries (54.9 million) and First Source (46.63 million).
Image: Bombay Stock Exchange