The Sensex opened with a loss of eight points at 5,357. The index slipped deep into the red in mid-morning deals to touch a low of 5,325, and remained range-bound till early noon deals on lacklustre trading in most of the counters.

The market firmed up in the mid-afternoon trades, as broad-based buying across-the-board from early weakness saw the index spurt to an intra-day high of 5,450.

The Sensex, however, pared gains towards the fag-end on profit-taking in select stocks, and ended the session with a gain of 36 points at 5,401. The Nifty also recovered from its early lows, and finished 11 points higher at 1,696.

Infosys registered 1.49% gains (Rs 76) to close at Rs 5,157. Wipro and Satyam also ended in the green at Rs 1,395 (up Rs 14) and Rs 298 (up Rs 2), respectively.

BHEL moved up 1.37% (Rs 7) at Rs 535. While HPCL was up a per cent (Rs 4) at Rs 472, SBI closed up a rupee at Rs 552. MTNL, however, witnessed selling in its counter, and dropped 3.59% (Rs 5) to Rs 123.

Hindalco (up Rs 24 or 1.83% to Rs 1,307), HDFC (up Rs 9 or 1.54% to Rs 615), HDFC Bank (up Rs 5 or 1.61% to Rs 344), Reliance Energy (up Rs 10 or 1.44% to Rs 721) and Bharti (up Rs 5 or 3.66% to Rs 139) mopped up significant gains on renewed buying support. Zee shot up 4.47% (Rs 5) to Rs 119. ICICI Bank, however, was down 1.84% (Rs 5) at Rs 272.

Reliance ended off-highs with a per cent gain (Rs 3) at Rs 511. ITC (up Rs 3 to Rs 1,077) and HLL (up a rupee to Rs 151) ended with modest gains.

Gujarat Ambuja advanced 3.64% (Rs 10) to Rs 295. While Grasim gained 2% (Rs 21) to Rs 1,024, ACC closed up a rupee at Rs 241. L&T also ended at higher levels with a gain of 1.14% (Rs 6) at Rs 564.

Bajaj added 1.35% (Rs 12) to close at Rs 864. Hero Honda was up a per cent (Rs 2) at Rs 450. Tata Motors, however, slipped from higher levels to end with a loss of 1.16% (Rs 5) at Rs 429.

Cipla and Ranbaxy were up a per cent each at Rs 1,154 (up Rs 10) and Rs 932 (up Rs 9), respectively. Dr. Reddy's, however, was down Rs 3 at Rs 1,007.