The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 149 points at 17,800, but dropped to a low of 17,679 in mid-noon deals.

Renewed buying in late noon deals saw the index surge to a high of 17,860 - up 209 points from the previous close. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 156 points at 17,806.

The NSE Nifty gained 69 points at 5,270.

The BSE market breadth was positive - out of 2,785 stocks traded, 1,650 advanced, 1,076 declined and 59 were unchanged on Tuesday.

Index Movers

Grasim [Get Quote] zoomed 5% to Rs 3,043. Reliance Energy [Get Quote] and BHEL soared over 4.5% each to Rs 1,697 and Rs 2,181, respectively.

Infosys [Get Quote] gained 3% to Rs 1,662. HDFC Bank [Get Quote] moved up over 2% to Rs 1,455.

Hindustan Unilever and Maruti [Get Quote] advanced nearly 2% each to Rs 219 and Rs 813, respectively.

ACC and ONGC [Get Quote] gained around 1.5% each at Rs 831 and Rs 1,028, respectively.

Wipro [Get Quote] and Reliance were up around 1% each at Rs 444 and Rs 2,576, respectively.

...and the shakers

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] slipped over 1% to Rs 839. Ambuja Cements, HDFC and Tata Motors [Get Quote] also declined. 

Value and volume toppers

Tulsi Extrusions led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 338.40 crore followed by Reliance Power (Rs 299.25 crore), OnMobile Global (Rs 263 crore), Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 164 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 157.50 crore).

Tulsi Extrusions topped the volume chart with trades of around 2.45 crore shares followed Reliance Natural Resources (1.14 crore), Gujarat NRE Coke [Get Quote] (68.30 lakh), Reliance Power (66.75 lakh) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (64.80 lakh).