The Sensex on Monday opened 42 points higher at 14,816, but soon slipped to a low of  14,685. Aggressive buying in realty stocks coupled with strong cues from the European markets helped the index rally to a high of 14,955, up 270 points from the day's low.

However, fresh selling towards the end of day saw the index wipe out gains and slip into red. The Sensex finally settled flat at 14,785, up 21 points. The NSE Nifty ended at 4,391, up 15 points.

The Consumer Durables index added 4% to 3,004 while the IT index slipped 2% to 3,305.

The market breadth was positive- out of 2,721 shares traded, 1,684 advanced and 967 declined on the BSE.

INDEX MOVERS. . .

Sterlite gained 5.5% at Rs 647 and DLF added around 4% to Rs 338.

Reliance and ONGC advanced over 2.5% each to Rs 2,085 and Rs 1,068, respectively.

Tata Steel was up over 2% at Rs 397.

BHEL, Hindalco and NTPC moved up over 1% each.

. . .AND THE SHAKERS

Tata Motors plunged 8% to Rs 314 after posting a  first massive net loss for the first time in eight years.

Sun Pharma declined 3.5% to Rs 1,100.

TCS, HDFC, Grasim and Infosys slipped 2.5% to Rs 386, Rs 2,372, Rs 2,315 and Rs 1,784, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

GMR Infrastructure topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 244.84 crore. It was followed by Suzlon (Rs 228.90 crore), HDIL (Rs 216.75 crore), Reliance (Rs 197.37 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 181.35 crore).

Rishabhdev Technocable led the volumes chart with trades of 25.31 million shares. It was followed  by Suzlon (19.52 million), IFCI (19.03 million), Unitech (17.57 million) and GMR Infrastructure (16.07 million).