After a massive plunge of nearly 300 points on the Sensex, the index today opened in the green at 17,715, thanks to positive cues from the Asian markets.

The benchmark index rallied higher on the back of buying in the banking and auto stocks.

The Sensex touched a high of 17,971 as  the European bourses also opened on a positive note.

The Sensex finally (provisional) settled with gains of 218 points at 17,933. The NSE Nifty shut shop at 5,361, up 57 points.

All the sectoral indices ended in the green. It was led by bankex, auto and oil & gas indices, up 1% each on the BSE.

Karnataka Bank [Get Quote] and HDFC Bank [Get Quote] added 3% each at Rs 136 and Rs 1,949, respectively. It was followed by Axis Bank and ICICI Bank [Get Quote], up 1.5% each.

INDEX GAINERS. . .

Tata Motors [Get Quote] and HDFC gained 4.5% each at Rs 808 and Rs 2,644, respectively. It was followed by HDFC Bank, BHEL, Jaiparakash Associates, Sterlite Industries and Hero Honda, up 2-3% each.

The other major gainers were Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Reliance Industries [Get Quote], ICICI Bank, Grasim Industries [Get Quote], Hindalco Industries [Get Quote] and Larsen & Toubro, up 1-2% each on the BSE.

. . .AND THE LOSERS

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Hindustan Unilever are down 1.5% each at Rs 308 and Rs 221, respectively.

The other losers were TCS [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote] and ACC, down 0.5% each.

The market breadth was positive, out of 2,998 shares traded, 1,899 advanced and 1,001 declined on the BSE.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Tata Motors topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 92.50crore. It was followed by Reliance Industries (Rs 85.25 crore), Sesa Goa [Get Quote] (Rs 83.34 crore), SAIL [Get Quote] (Rs 62.07 crore) and Tata Steel [Get Quote] (Rs 58.42 crore).

Shree Ganesh Jewellwery led the volume chart on the BSE with trades of 27.48 million shares. It was followed by Ballarpur Industries [Get Quote] (25 million), Spicejet (8.7 million), BAG Films [Get Quote] (7.42 million) and IFCI (6.2 million).