Riding on the back of yesterday's tax concession announcement by FM in securities and other instruments, the Sensex today opened above the 5,000-mark with a huge positive gap of 47 points at 5,041.

The index trimmed its gains in early deals to touch a low of 5,021, but soon rolled back to exhibit bullish trend therafter on strong gains in most of the counters.

The markets witnessed unprecedented buying support in mid-noon trades, which saw the index surge to an intra-day high of 5,083. Although the markets showed signs of decline in late noon deals following weakness in select cement, auto, and tech majors, sharp buying support, however, in Reliance, SBI and other select old economy stocks saw the Sensex finally wrap up the session with a gain of 60 points at 5,054.

The Nifty added 17 points to close at 1,598.

PSU, select heavyweight and other old economy stocks attracted strong buying support.

SBI flared up 5% (Rs 22) to Rs 463. ONGC was up a per cent (Rs 4) at Rs 703. While BHEL moved up 1.51% (Rs 8) to Rs 552, HPCL rose 3.38% (Rs 10) to Rs 304. MTNL jumped 3% (Rs 4) to Rs 137.

Reliance advanced 4.68% (Rs 20) to Rs 455. While ITC slipped a per cent (Rs 10) to Rs 983, HLL was down a rupee at Rs 120.

HDFC shot up 5.76% (Rs 33) to Rs 599. Bharti notched up 4.77% gains (Rs 7) to Rs 165. While Reliance Energy added 1.67% (Rs 10) to Rs 586, Tata Power gained 2.39% (Rs 6) to Rs 269. Tisco moved up 1.91% (Rs 7) to Rs 363.

Cement, auto and tech pivotals, however, ended on a lacklustre note.

Gujarat Ambuja dropped 2.67% (Rs 7) to Rs 264. While ACC was down 1.29% (Rs 3) at Rs 229, Grasim ended marginally lower at Rs 958.

Hero Honda and Maruti ended a per cent lower each at Rs 437 (down Rs 4) and Rs 422 (down Rs 5), respectively. Tata Motors, too, slipped a per cent (Rs 2) to Rs 401. Bajaj, however, was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 845.

Satyam was down a per cent (Rs 2) at Rs 332. While Wipro closed down a notch at Rs 524, Infosys, however, ended with a modest gain of Rs 5 at Rs 1,442.

Pharma stocks finished on a divergent note.

Ranbaxy finished Rs 3 higher at Rs 977. While Cipla closed up a rupee at Rs 241, Dr. Reddy's, however, was down Rs 2 at Rs 768.