After a volatile session on Wednesday, the Sensex on Thursday opened with a huge positive gap of 56 points at 15,357, which also turned out to be the low for the day.

Sustained buying across-the-board saw the index zoom to a new, intra-day high of 15,593 - a gain of 292 points from the previous close of 15,301. The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 249 points at 15,550.

The BSE Oil & Gas Index zoomed nearly 3% to 8168. The BSE Auto Index gained 1.9% to 5147.

The broad market breadth was bullish - out of 2,676 scrips traded, 1,502 moved up and 1,105 declined today.

Reliance, Infosys [Get Quote] sizzle

Reliance zoomed over 4% (Rs 76) to Rs 1,896. Infosys gained 2.6% to Rs 1,997.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] advanced 4.7% (Rs 35) to Rs 778. Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] gained over 4% (Rs 99) to Rs 2,382.

Grasim [Get Quote], L&T, Reliance Communications [Get Quote], ACC, M&M, and SBI [Get Quote] also finished with gains today.

Most active counters

Spice was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 695 crore followed by DLF (Rs 371 crore), Zee Entertainment (Rs 272 crore), Reliance (Rs 208 crore) and RCom (Rs 151 crore).