The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 44 points at 19,103, and rallied to an intra-day high of 19,174. Profit-taking, on account of weak global markes, saw the index slip into negative zone in late morning deals.

The index dropped to a low of 18,778 - down 396 points from the peak - in mid-noon deals, but fresh buying at lower levels saw the index recover losses by the closing bell.

The Sensex finally ended almost flat at 19,052 - down seven points.

The Nifty closed at 5668, down 2 points.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,817 stocks traded, 1,543 declined, 1,212 advanced and 62 were unchanged today.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Infosys [Get Quote] and Hindustan Unilever dropped 3% each to Rs 1,868 and Rs 212, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra slipped 2.3% to Rs 815. Larsen & Toubro dropped 2% to Rs 3,346.

SBI [Get Quote] declined 1.7% to Rs 1,924. Bajaj Auto [Get Quote], Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], ACC and Grasim [Get Quote] dropped around 1.5% each to Rs 2,540, Rs 1,110, Rs 1,267 and Rs 3,759, respectively.

ONGC [Get Quote], Cipla, Wipro [Get Quote] and ITC were down over 1% each to Rs 1,176, Rs 185, Rs 486 and Rs 185, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] zoomed over 5% to Rs 1,157. Hindalco [Get Quote] soared 4.5% to Rs 197.

Reliance Energy [Get Quote] rallied 3% to Rs 1,904. Maruti [Get Quote] and NTPC surged 2% each to Rs 1,187 and Rs 231, respectively.

Satyam [Get Quote] moved up 1.6% to Rs 450. Reliance Communications [Get Quote], HDFC Bank [Get Quote] and Ambuja Cements were up around 1% each at Rs 761, Rs 1,505 and Rs 153, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Energy topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 658 crore followed by Power Grid (Rs 433 crore), Reliance (Rs 394 crore), Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (Rs 296 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs 259.50 crore).

Power Grid led the volume chart with trades of around 3.56 crore shares followed by Tata Teleservices [Get Quote] (3.53 crore), IFCI (1.77 crore), Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (1.72 crore) and Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (1.21 crore).