The Sensex opened marginally (14 points) higher at 12,962. After extending gains in the opening trades, the index slipped into negative zone to a low of 12,823 owing to nervousness in the market.

Renewed buying interest at lower levels helped the index recoup losses and rebound into the positive zone. Aggressive short covering, mainly in financials and realy stocks, saw the Sensex rally to a high of 13,712 - up 889 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a smart gain of 703 points at 13,665. The index had dropped 1,460 points in the last three trading days.

The market breadth turned positive towards the close - out of 2,737 stocks traded, 1,586 advanced, 1,094 declined and 57 were unchanged today.

The Nifty surged 197 points to end at 4,093.

Index Movers...

DLF skyrocketted 15% to Rs 424 after the company announced plans for buy-back of equity shares.

Reliance Infrastructure zoomed 12.6% to Rs 791. HDFC [ Get Quote ] soared over 11% to Rs 2,039.

ONGC [ Get Quote ] surged over 8% to Rs 854. Larsen & Toubro gained 7.3% at Rs 2,297.

Satyam [ Get Quote ] and Jaiprakash Associates [ Get Quote ] rallied 7% each to Rs 463 and Rs 145, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra and Infosys [ Get Quote ] advanced 6.5% each to Rs 469 and Rs 1,821, respectively.

Tata Steel [ Get Quote ] and Hindalco [ Get Quote ] moved up over 6% each to Rs 741 and Rs 142, respectively.

Wipro [ Get Quote ], ICICI Bank [ Get Quote ], HDFC Bank and Reliance Communications [ Get Quote ] were up 5.7% each at Rs 440, Rs 623, Rs 1,021 and Rs 418, respectively.

SBI [ Get Quote ], Bharti Airtel [ Get Quote ] and BHEL, also, moved up over 5% each to Rs 1,079, Rs 744 and Rs 1,426, respectively.

Reliance gained 4.8% at Rs 2,143. Ambuja Cements, TCS [ Get Quote ], NTPC, Cipla and Ranbaxy [ Get Quote ] were the other major gainers.

...And The Shakers

ITC slipped over 2% to Rs 180. ACC down 0.7% at Rs 502 was the only other loser among the index stocks.

Value & volume toppers

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 470.30 crore followed by Reliance Capital [ Get Quote ] (Rs 457 crore), Reliance Petroleum [ Get Quote ] (Rs 350 crore), Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 230 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [ Get Quote ] (Rs 198.40 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 3.33 crore shares followed by IFCI (2.59 crore), Reliance Petroleum (2.10 crore), Ispat Industries [ Get Quote ] (1.83 crore) and Chambal Fertilisers (1.59 crore).