The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 66 points at 14,055. After extending gains in early trades, the index slipped in late morning deals and tumbled to a low of 13,871 - down 184 points from the day's open.

The index, however, bounced on the back of renewed buying in heavweights. The index rallied to a high of 14,281 - up 410 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 260 points at 14,249.

The BSE FMCG and Metal indices moved up over 2% each to 1842 and 10,081, respectively.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,674 stocks traded, 1,576 declined, 1,041 advanced and 57 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

BHEL and Reliance Energy zoomed nearly 5% each to Rs 1,667 and Rs 725, respectively.

Tata Steel, ITC and Bharti Airtel soared over 4% each to Rs 569, Rs 158 and Rs 846, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro, Ambuja Cements and Mahindra & Mahindra rallied 3% each to Rs 2,384, Rs 131 and Rs 630, respectively.

ONGC and Reliance Communications surged 2.4% each to Rs 809 and Rs 495, respectively.

Hindalco and ICICI Bank advanced 2% each to Rs 139 and Rs 847, respectively.

ACC and Infosys gained 1.7% each at Rs 953 and Rs 1,790, respectively.

Wipro, Dr.Reddy's, Hindustan Unilever and HDFC Bank were up 1.5% each at Rs 454, Rs 631, Rs 196 and Rs 1,119, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Tata Motors dropped 2.5% to Rs 619.

Cipla, which tumbled nearly 10% to a low of Rs 160, recovered smartly and finally ended with a loss of 1% at Rs 176.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 188 crore followed by SBI (Rs 150.70 crore), Zylog System (Rs 146 crore), GMR Infra (Rs 127.70 crore) and Orbit Corp (Rs 101.40 crore).

Nagarjuna Fertilisers led the volume chart with trades of around 2.84 crore shares followed by IKF Technologies (1.68 crore), Chambal Fertilisers (1.18 crore), IFCI (1.16 crore) and Ispat (78.60 lakh).