Following which, the index pared gains and slipped back into the negative zone. Constant selling in banking and oil & gas stocks dragged the index to a low of 13,976 - down 429 points from the day's high.
The Sensex finally ended 241 points lower at 14,061. The Nifty ended down 48 points at 4,270.
The market breadth was highly positive - out of 2,735 stocks traded, 2,392 advanced, 299 declined and 44 were unchanged today.
The BSE Bankex and the Oil & Gas slipped over 2% each to 7,919 and 9,607, respectively.
Index Movers...
Tata Motors surged 19% to Rs 364. Tata Steel zoomed 13% to Rs 371. Mahindra & Mahindra soared 8% to Rs 679, and Hindalco advanced 7% to Rs 83.
Jaiprakash Associates added 5% to Rs 173, and Maruti gained 4.5% to Rs 1,043.
Ranbaxy and Reliance Infrastructure advanced over 3.5% each.
And the losers...
DLF plunged over 7.5% to Rs 355. ICICI Bank tumbled 6.5% each to Rs 709.
HDFC, BHEL and Bharti Airtel slumped 6% each to Rs 2,210, Rs 2,040 and Rs 859, respectively.
Reliance Capital slumped 7% to Rs 846. Axis Bank, Educomp Solutions, Bank of Baroda, Bharat Forge, Aban Offshore, Idea Cellular, Godrej Consumer declined 3-5% each.
Sun Pharma, Reliance, HDFC Bank and Reliance Communications declined 2-5% each.
Other prominent gainers...
Hindustan Constructions zoomed 24% to Rs 104. Tulip Telecom, MMTC, Everest Kanto Cylinder, Moser Baer, Madras Cement, Ispat Industries, Voltas, CESC, Lanco Infratech and Videocon gained 14-21% each.
Value & volume toppers
DLF topped the value chart on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 321.05 crore. It was followed by Tata Steel (Rs 316.15 crore), Reliance (Rs 294.67), Unitech (Rs 271.60) and Reliance Capital (Rs 251.83 crore).
Cals Refineries topped the volume chart on the BSE with trades of 72.77 million shares. It was followed by Unitech (36.78 million), Reliance Natural Resources (30.32 million), Ispat Industries (26.89 million) and Kashyap Technologies (21.26 million).