The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 63 points at 15,383, and dropped to a low of 15,350 in early deals.

The index rebounded into positive zone soon, and then there was no looking back....

Aggressive buying towards the close saw the index rally to a high of 15,638 - up 288 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 170 points at 15,616.

The index is now just 253 points away from its all-time high of 15,869 hit in late July.

The BSE FMCG index gained 1.5% at 2032. The Auto, Bankex and Oil & Gas indices moved up over 1% each to 4937, 8111 and 8232, respectively.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,774 stocks traded so far, 1,683 advanced, 1,015 declined and 76 were unchanged today.

LEADING THE RALLY...

Reliance Energy zoomed 4.5% to Rs 860. Grasim soared 4% to Rs 3,177, and Ranbaxy surged 3.5% to Rs 414.

HDFC rallied nearly 3% to Rs 2,111. SBI and Ambuja Cements gained 2.3% each at Rs 1,632 and Rs 141, respectively.

ITC and Tata Motors advanced around 2% each to Rs 175 and Rs 712, respectively.

Hindustan Unilever, ACC and Mahindra & Mahindra added 1.8% each to Rs 216, Rs 1,102 and 722, respectively.

Reliance and Tata Steel moved up 1.3% each to Rs 1,983 and Rs 693, respectively.

Bajaj Auto, Cipla, Wipro, HDFC Bank and Maruti were up around 1% each at Rs 2,333, Rs 185, Rs 478, Rs 1,185 and Rs 881, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

IVRCL Infra topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 132.70 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs 125 crore), SBI (Rs 105 crore), Indiabulls (Rs 104.50 crore) and GMR Infra (Rs 102.70 crore).

Bellary Steel led the volume chart with trades of around 1.77 crore shares followed by IKF Technologies (1.32 crore), IFCI (1.26 crore), Tata Tele (1.14 crore) and Manali Petro (1.11 crore).