The Sensex opened with a huge positive gap of 98 points at 14,966. Profit-taking in intra-day deals saw the index pare gains and touch a low of 14,869 - just a point short of negative territory.

The index bounced in noon deals on the back of steady buying in select heavyweights like Hindustan Unilever, HDFC [Get Quote], NTPC and Tata Steel [Get Quote]. Auto stocks, too, posted smart gains today.

The index rallied to a high of 15,045, and finally ended with a gain of 149 points at 15,017.

The BSE Auto index rallied nearly 2% to 4826. The FMCG and Metal indices were up around 1.5% each at 1932 and 11,009, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,759 stocks traded, 1,912 advanced, 798 declined and 49 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Hindustan Unilever zoomed 4% to Rs 204. Cipla soared over 3% to Rs 191.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] rallied 3.5% to Rs 693. Maruti [Get Quote] and Mahindra & Mahindra surged 2.8% each to Rs 833 and Rs 690, respectively. Bajaj Auto [Get Quote] gained 2.6% at Rs 2,380.

HDFC advanced nearly 2% to Rs 1,984. Grasim [Get Quote] and NTPC added 1.8% each to Rs 2,937 and Rs 168, respectively.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] and Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] moved up 1.7% each to Rs 374 and Rs 852, respectively.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote], Tata Steel, ACC, ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and Reliance were up over 1% each.

...AND THE SHAKERS

TCS [Get Quote] was down nearly 1% at Rs 1,135. Satyam [Get Quote] was down marginally at Rs 477.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Everonn Systems topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 399.80 crore followed by Orbit Corp (Rs 209 crore), IFCI (Rs 139.50 crore), IDBI (Rs 113.30 crore) and Reliance (Rs 88.20 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 2.09 crore shares followed by Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.18 crore), Reliance Natural [Get Quote] (1.18 crore), Mangalore Chemicals (1.03 crore) and Silverline (1 crore).