The Sensex after touching a low of 17,278 recovered 250 points to a high of 17,527 on fresh hopes the EU bailout will be passed by the Greek Parliament.
Things turned around after the Greece ruling party withdrew support and asked the Prime Minister to resign, thereby raising hopes that a referendum to the latest EU bailout package may not be needed.
The index finally ended flat at 17,482. Nifty ended at 5,265 - up seven points.
The BSE benchmark indices had opened lower this morning following global mixed cues as the Asian markets charted a different course vis-a-vis their American counterparts.
While Wall Street had rebounded overnight from two days of sharp losses on the back of Fed's willingness to do more for the economy, with the Dow adding 1.5% and S&P 500 gaining 1.6%, the Asian bourses fell off the cliff on fears that Europe's debt crisis could unleash financial chaos worldwide.
And the brittle start to the proceedings in Europe only aggravated the nervousness across Asia, with the Hang Seng dropping more than 2% and the Straits Times, Taiwan and Seoul slipping more than a percent each.
While our markets have been undeterred by the European fears, the last hour of trade will decide whether we manage to retain the resilience at closing.
Global markets would be looking at Friday's Group of 20 (G20) meeting at Cannes for direction as policy makers try to solve the debt crisis.
In other news, according to government data released today, food inflation rose to 12.21% during the week ended October 22, with expensive vegetables, pulses, fruits and milk, putting more burden on the common man.
Food inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, stood at 11.43%
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