The Sensex opened 83 points higher on the back of positive close in the US markets, but soon slipped into a negative zone.

Fresh buying in FMCG, IT and metal stocks helped the index rebound into the positive zone, the index touched a high of 16,563 - up 345 points from day's low (16,218) in the late noon deals.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 250 points at 16,525.

The market breadth was neutral - out of 2,756 stocks traded, 1,312 advanced, 1,358 declined and 86 were unchanged on Wednesday.

The NSE Nifty moved up 58 points to close at 4,918.

Index Movers. . .

Ambuja Cements soared 6.7% to Rs 104. ITC surged 6.2% to Rs 222, and Hindalco [Get Quote] gained 6% to Rs 196.

TCS [Get Quote] advanced 4.5% to Rs 1,010. Tata Steel [Get Quote] moved up 4% at Rs 903.

SBI [Get Quote] and Satyam [Get Quote] surged over 3% each to Rs 1,519 and Rs 514, respectively.

Wipro [Get Quote] gained around 4% to Rs 506. Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] was up 2.6% to Rs 229.

Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] and Hindustan Unilever moved up 2.5% each to Rs 885 and Rs 238, respectively.

ACC was up 2% to Rs 669. Maruti [Get Quote] and Infosys [Get Quote] were up around 2% to Rs 778 and Rs 1,913, respectively.

Grasim [Get Quote] was trading at 2,238 - up 1.7%.

HDFC Bank [Get Quote] added 1.5% to Rs 1,352. Cipla and Tata Motors [Get Quote] were up 1.3% each to Rs 208 and Rs 635, respectively.

DLF, Reliance and Reliance Infrastructure were the other major gainers.

And The Shakers. . .

BHEL tumbled 2.8% to Rs 1,612. Larsen & Toubro was down 1.2% at Rs 2,709.

ONGC [Get Quote] slipped 1.1% at Rs 874, while Mahindra and Mahindra declined 0.5% to Rs 642.

Most Active Counters

Chambal Fertilisers led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 291.49 crore followed by Bajaj Finserv (Rs 235.93 crore), Reliance (Rs 190.18 crore), Reliance Capital [Get Quote] (165.28 crore) and Reliance Power (Rs 131.39 crore).

Chambal Fertilisers, also, topped the volume chart with trades of around 3.48 crore shares followed by Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.86 crore), Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (1.35 crore), IFCI (1.23 crore) and Spice Telecom (1.14 crore).