The Sensex opened 52 points lower at 16,687, and soon slipped to a low of 16,598. Fresh buying in capital goods stocks helped the index rebound into the positive zone.

The index touched a high of 16,854 - up 256 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 45 points at 16,784.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,758 stocks traded, 1,569 advanced, 1,127 declined and 62 were unchanged on Tuesday.

The NSE Nifty moved up 12 points to close at 5,049.

Index movers

BHEL and Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] soared 5.5% each to Rs 1,872 and Rs 246, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote] surged 3.7% to Rs 2,577, and DLF rallied 3.5% to Rs 674.

HDFC Bank advanced 3% to Rs 1,488, and Larsen & Toubro added 2.6% to Rs 2,921.

ACC, ONGC [Get Quote] and Cipla gained 2.3% each at Rs 819, Rs 1,054 and Rs 231, respectively.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and ITC moved up over 2% each to Rs 882 and Rs 213, respectively.

Tata Motors [Get Quote] gained 1.4% at Rs 631. Ambuja Cements was up over 1% at Rs 115.

And the movers

TCS [Get Quote] slumped 10.6% to Rs 887. Wipro [Get Quote] and Satyam [Get Quote] plunged 5% each to Rs 431 and Rs 436, respectively. Infosys [Get Quote] shed 2.8% at Rs 1,599.

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slipped 2.4% to Rs 487. Grasim [Get Quote], Maruti [Get Quote] and Mahindra & Mahindra dropped over 1.5% each to Rs 2,600, Rs 754 and Rs 629, respectively.

Reliance and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] were down over 1% each to Rs 2,607 and Rs 553, respectively.

Value and volume toppers

Orchid Chemicals topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 355.30 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 314 crore), Reliance (Rs 220.70 crore), debutant Kiri Dyes (Rs 212.70 crore) and IFCI (Rs 193.50 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 3.45 crore shares followed by Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (3.30 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (2.72 crore), Tata Teleservices [Get Quote] (1.44 crore) and Orchid Chemicals (1.40 crore).