The Sensex opened almost flat at 8,906 - up three points amid mixed cues from the global markets. The index soon slipped to a low of 8,788 led by heavy selling in banking stocks.
However, selective buying thereafter helped the index recoup losses. A strong wave of short-covering, owing to the February derivatives expiry today, towards the end saw the index rebound into the positive zone and surge to a high of 8,998.
The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 52 points at 8,955.
The NSE Nifty closed at 2786, up 23 points.
The BSE Auto index rallied 2.7% to 2,694. The Oil & Gas and IT indices surged over 1% each to 6,165 and 2,111, respectively. The Bankex, however, dropped over 2% to 4,185.
The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 2,448 stocks traded, 1,339 declined, 1,016 advanced and the rest were unchanged on Thursday.
INDEX MOVERS...
Tata Motors zoomed over 7% to Rs 150 helped by the company's announcement of March 23 as the launch date of 'Nano'.
Maruti rallied 5% to Rs 696. Grasim soared 3.7% to Rs 1,459.
Reliance Communications and ONGC moved up nearly 3% each to Rs 159 and Rs 715, respectively.
Sterlite and NTPC gained 2.3% each at Rs 253 and Rs 184, respectively.
Reliance advanced 2% to Rs 1,290. Infosys, BHEL and Bharti Airtel added 1.5% each to Rs 1,236, Rs 1,402 and Rs 652, respectively.
ITC and HDFC Bank were up 1% each at Rs 184 and Rs 873, respectively.
...AND THE SHAKERS
Ranbaxy slumped 18% to Rs 170 on the news that the USFDA put all pending and approved ANDAs from the company's Paonta Sahib facility to a list maintained under a policy entitled "Application Integrity Policy". The counter clocked a hefty volume of over 60 lakh shares as against its daily two-week average volume of nearly six lakh shares.
ICICI Bank plunged 4.6% to Rs 325, and HDFC tumbled 3.4% to Rs 1,212.
Hindalco dropped over 3% to Rs 39. Tata Power slipped nearly 2% to Rs 731, and SBI declined 1.3% to Rs 1,024.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Educomp Solutions topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 193.16 crore followed by Akruti City (Rs 168.41 crore), United Spirits (Rs 146.80 crore), Reliance (Rs 140.73 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 125.81 crore).
Unitech led the volume chart with trades of around 80.26 lakh shares followed by Satyam (76.21 lakh), DLF (64.80 lakh), Cals Refineries (61.77 lakh) and Suzlon Energy (61.38 lakh).