The Sensex opened a tad (four points) lower at 13,603, but moved into positive zone soon on the back of fresh buying in morning trades.
Continued buying in select heavyweights like NTPC, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, ONGC and Reliance saw the index rally to a high of 13,763.
The Sensex, however, pared gains towards the end, and finally settled with a gain of 65 points at 13,672.
The index movement, over the last two days, can be termed consolidation following the recent rally. Yesterday, the index moved in a range of 13,756-13,581 before settling with a loss of 89 points at 13,607.
The market breadth was marginally positive - out of 2,661 stocks traded, 1,335 advanced, 1,234 declined and 92 were unchanged today.
Movers & shakers
NTPC soared over 3% to Rs 162. SBI surged 2.6% to Rs 1,035, and Wipro advanced over 2% to Rs 586.
Bharti Airtel, ONGC, HDFC Bank and Cipla gained around 1.5% each to Rs 813, Rs 905, Rs 988 and Rs 233, respectively.
Hindalco, ACC and Satyam moved up 1.3% each to Rs 145, Rs 817 and Rs 462, respectively.
Tata Steel tumbled to a low of Rs 496 (down 6%) in the opening trades on fears of equity dilution post the rights issue. The stock, however, finally ended with a loss of only 3% at Rs 511.
Bajaj Auto slipped 2% to Rs 2,497. Grasim, HLL and Tata Motors declined over 1% each to Rs 2,343, Rs 208 and Rs 722, respectively.
Value & volume toppers
ICRA topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 391.80 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 241.50 crore), debutant Dish TV (Rs 201.80 crore), Reliance (Rs 80.10 crore) and Page Industries (Rs 79 crore).
Dish TV led the volume chart with trades of around 1.90 crore shares followed by IFCI (77.15 lakh), Himchal Futuristic (75.45 lakh), Tata Steel (47.55 lakh) and Hindustan Oil Exploration (47.10 lakh).
