However, fresh buying at lower levels helped the index recoup losses and rebound into the positive zone. The index rallied to a high of 15,229 - up 341 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 51 points at 15,168.

The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 2,799 stocks traded so far, 1,406 declined, 1,324 advanced and 69 were unchanged today.

The NSE Nifty was up six points at 4,530.

INDEX MOVERS...

Sterlite and ONGC [Get Quote] surged 4% each to Rs 639 and Rs 1,064, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Larsen & Toubro rallied 2.8% each to Rs 729 and Rs 2,834, respectively.

HDFC Bank [Get Quote] and Hindalco [Get Quote] gained around 2% each at Rs 1,280 and Rs 145, respectively.

Maruti [Get Quote], HDFC and Tata Steel [Get Quote] were up around 1.5% each at Rs 680, Rs 2,513 and Rs 651, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Grasim [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote] and Infosys [Get Quote] dropped 2.5% each to Rs 2,038, Rs 438 and Rs 1,680, respectively.

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] shed 2% at Rs 184. Satyam [Get Quote] tumbled 1.8% to Rs 409.

ACC slipped 1.5% to Rs 630. DLF, TCS [Get Quote], Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Reliance were down around 1% each at Rs 548, Rs 843, Rs 842 and Rs 2,250, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 346.35 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 293.50 crore), Reliance (Rs 211 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 193.80 crore) and Larsen & Toubro (Rs 178.40 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.90 crore shares followed by Chambal Fertilisers (1.62 crore), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.35 crore), Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.05 crore) and IFCI (88.70 lakh).