After opening with a positive gap of 39 points at 14,122, the Sensex exhibited lacklustre movement in morning trades. A fresh round of selling in noon trades saw the index break the psychological level of 14,000, and drop to a low of 13,947.

However, renewed buying interest mainly in heavyweights Tata Steel [Get Quote], Reliance and ICICI Bank [Get Quote] helped the index recover losses and rebound into the positive zone. Aggressive buying with some short-covering saw the index rally to a high of 14,153 -- up 206 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 48 points at 14,131. NSE Nifty ended at 4,155, up 9 points.

The market breadth is negative -- out of 2,581 stocks traded, 1,678 declined, 823 advanced and 80 were unchanged on Tuesday.

Movers And Shakers

ACC zoomed 5.5% to Rs 807. Grasim [Get Quote] surged 2% to Rs 2,395, and Gujarat Ambuja [Get Quote] was up nearly 1% at Rs 110.

Tata Steel rallied 4% to Rs 603. ICICI Bank and Reliance advanced 2% each to Rs 919 and Rs 1,700, respectively. HDFC [Get Quote] and Hero Honda were up 1% each at Rs 1,781 and Rs 706, respectively.

Satyam [Get Quote] plunged nearly 4% to Rs 478. Dr.Reddy's and Maruti [Get Quote] slipped around 2% each to Rs 611 and Rs 719, respectively. Tata Motors [Get Quote], Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and Cipla declined around 1.5% each to Rs 641, Rs 498 and Rs 208, respectively.

NTPC, HDFC Bank and Hindalco [Get Quote] were down 1% each at Rs 153, Rs 1,087 and Rs 159, respectively.

Value And Volume Toppers

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 176.65 crore followed by Nitin Fire (Rs 130 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 99.40 crore), SBI [Get Quote] (Rs 94.75 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 82.70 crore).

G V Films [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 1.25 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (93.30 lakh), S.Kumars (66.65 lakh), IFCI (62.20 lakh) and IKF Technologies [Get Quote] (55.90 lakh).