The Sensex opened with a huge negative gap of 418 points at 12,178 owing to weakness in the US markets.

Aggressive buying in banking, realty and capital goods stocks helped the index to recover smartly and rebound into the positive zone.

The Sensex moved in a wide range of 802 points between 12,153 (low) and 12,995 (high) before finally settling with a gain of 265 points at 12,860.

The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 2,672 stocks traded, 1,316 declined, 1,277 advanced and 79 were unchanged.

The NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 71 points at 3,921.

INDEX MOVERS...

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] skyrocketed 8.4% to Rs 535. TCS [Get Quote] zoomed nearly 7% to Rs 663. HDFC [Get Quote] surged 5.3% to Rs 2,141. Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and BHEL advanced 5.1% each to Rs 785 and Rs 1,586, respectively.

SBI [Get Quote] was up 4.3% at Rs 1,466. Larsen & Toubro added 4.2% at Rs 2,443, while Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] gained 4.1% to Rs 111.

Maruti [Get Quote] inched up 3.7% to Rs 687. NTPC moved up 3.3% to Rs 172. HDFC Bank gained 2.5% to Rs 1,229.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Mahindra & Mahindra and Satyam [Get Quote] were the other major gainers.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Tata Steel [Get Quote] tumbled 4.4% to Rs 426, and Tata Motors [Get Quote] declined 3.3% to Rs 344. Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slipped 3.2% to Rs 248. Grasim [Get Quote] dropped 2.6% to Rs 1,688.

ITC and Tata Power [Get Quote] were down 1.3% each to Rs 906 and Rs 188, respectively.

Hindustan Unilever shed 1.2% to Rs 251. Sterlite and Wipro [Get Quote] declined over 1% each at Rs 428 and Rs 340, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 405.22 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 356.16 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 336.94 crore), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 206.55 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 203.49 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] led the volume chart with trades of around 2.33 crore shares followed by IFCI (1.27 crore), Suzlon Energy [Get Quote] (89.37 lakh), Chambal Fertilisers (80.36 lakh) and Ispat (72.22 lakh).