The Sensex opened on a flat note at 15,296, up six points, but slipped on account of profit-taking in early trades.

The index, thereafter, swung in and out of the positive zone for most of the trading session. A fresh round of selling in late noon trades saw the index tumble to a low of 15,160 - down 130 points from the previous close - but only to bounce back sharply.

The buying momentum was so strong that the index rallied to a high of 15,326 - up 166 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a marginal gain of 11 points at 15,301.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,705 stocks traded, 1,481 declined, 1,148 advanced and 76 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Hindalco [Get Quote] soared 4.5% to Rs 187. Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] surged 3.5% to Rs 893.

Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] and ACC rallied 2.8% each to Rs 2,282 and Rs 1,141, respectively. Grasim [Get Quote] gained 2% at Rs 2,915.

TCS [Get Quote] advanced 1.3% to Rs 1,170. Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] were up over 1% each to Rs 567 and Rs 985, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Larsen and Toubro shed 2.5% to Rs 2,334. ONGC [Get Quote] plunged 1.8% to Rs 892.

Reliance Energy [Get Quote] and Satyam [Get Quote] dropped 1.4% each to Rs 689 and Rs 482, respectively.

ITC and Dr.Reddy's were down over 1% each to Rs 154 and Rs 666, respectively.

VALUE AND VOLUME TOPPERS

DLF topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 370 crore (Rs 3.7 billion) followed by Indiabulls Real Estate [Get Quote] (Rs 226.80 crore or Rs 2.26 billion), GMR Infra (Rs 165.70 crore or Rs 1.65 billion), Reliance (Rs 126.60 crore or Rs 1.26 billion) and Akruti Nirman [Get Quote] (Rs 125.50 crore or Rs 1.25 billion).

Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 2.13 crore shares followed by K S Oils (1.03 crore), Mangalore Fertilisers (90.30 lakh), IDBI (89.70 lakh) and IFCI (75 lakh).

The NSE Nifty ended up 3 points at 4,500.