The Sensex exhibited lacklustre movement for most part of the trading session today. After opening a tad higher at 14,469, the index swung in and out of positive zone.

The index slipped to a low of 14,425, but recovered smartly and rebounded into positive zone in late trades led by fresh buying in the telecom majors - Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Reliance Communications [Get Quote].

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 21 points at 14,488.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,646 stocks traded, 1,500 advanced, 1,073 declined and 73 were unchanged today.

MIXED PICTURE

Larsen & Toubro surged nearly 3% to Rs 2,166. Reliance Communications gained nearly 2% to Rs 523, and Bharti Airtel moved up over 1% to Rs 833.

HDFC [Get Quote] was up 1.3% to Rs 1,904. ONGC [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements were up nearly 1% each at Rs 917 and Rs 117, respectively.

Cipla, Grasim [Get Quote] and Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] dropped 1.7% each to Rs 206, Rs 2,452 and Rs 2,138, respectively.

Satyam [Get Quote] and Hindustan Unilever shed 1.5% each to Rs 455 and Rs 189, respectively.

TCS [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote] and Tata Motors [Get Quote] slipped over 1% each to Rs 1,126, Rs 753 and Rs 677, respectively.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Indiabulls Real Estate [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 138 crore followed by Hindalco [Get Quote] (Rs 120 crore), Reliance (Rs 94.40 crore), Educomp Solutions [Get Quote] (Rs 89.20 crore) and ICRA (76 crore).

IKF Technologies [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 1.40 crore shares followed by Bampsl Securities (89.80 lakh), Reliance Petro (71 lakh), Hindalco (70.30 lakh) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (51 lakh).

The NSE Nifty ended up 7 points at 4,259.