After opening with a positive gap of 39 points at 14,122, the Sensex exhibited lacklustre movement in morning trades. A fresh round of selling in noon trades saw the index break the psychological level of 14,000, and drop to a low of 13,947.
However, renewed buying interest mainly in heavyweights Tata Steel, Reliance and ICICI Bank helped the index recover losses and rebound into the positive zone. Aggressive buying with some short-covering saw the index rally to a high of 14,153 -- up 206 points from the day's low.
The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 48 points at 14,131. NSE Nifty ended at 4,155, up 9 points.
The market breadth is negative -- out of 2,581 stocks traded, 1,678 declined, 823 advanced and 80 were unchanged on Tuesday.
Movers And Shakers
ACC zoomed 5.5% to Rs 807. Grasim surged 2% to Rs 2,395, and Gujarat Ambuja was up nearly 1% at Rs 110.
Tata Steel rallied 4% to Rs 603. ICICI Bank and Reliance advanced 2% each to Rs 919 and Rs 1,700, respectively. HDFC and Hero Honda were up 1% each at Rs 1,781 and Rs 706, respectively.
Satyam plunged nearly 4% to Rs 478. Dr.Reddy's and Maruti slipped around 2% each to Rs 611 and Rs 719, respectively. Tata Motors, Reliance Communications and Cipla declined around 1.5% each to Rs 641, Rs 498 and Rs 208, respectively.
NTPC, HDFC Bank and Hindalco were down 1% each at Rs 153, Rs 1,087 and Rs 159, respectively.
Value And Volume Toppers
Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 176.65 crore followed by Nitin Fire (Rs 130 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 99.40 crore), SBI (Rs 94.75 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 82.70 crore).
G V Films led the volume chart with trades of around 1.25 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural (93.30 lakh), S.Kumars (66.65 lakh), IFCI (62.20 lakh) and IKF Technologies (55.90 lakh).