After opening bearish with a loss of two points at 5,518, the index touched an intra-day low of 5,493 in early deals, largely on the back of weakness in tech stocks. The markets soon bounced back into the green and moved with steady gains on selective buying till early noon deals.

The markets flared up towards the closing hours as a sharp rally in heavyweight, PSU, cement, auto and other select old economy stocks saw the index spurt to an intra-day high of 5,600.

The Sensex finally ended 70 points higher to close at 5,591. The Nifty, too, firmed up on broad-based buying support, and scaled up 1.24% or 22 points to close at 1,772.

While 24 Sensex stocks advanced, five declined and one remained unchanged on Wednesday.

Reliance advanced 2% (Rs 11) to Rs 538. HLL moved up 2.49% (Rs 4) to Rs 154. ITC, however, lost a per cent (Rs 8) to close at Rs 1,041.

SBI mopped up 2.21% gains (Rs 13) to Rs 606. HPCL appreciated by 3.31% (Rs 16) to Rs 508. While BHEL bounced back from its lows to end 1.94% up (Rs 11) at Rs 604, MTNL logged 3.60% gains (Rs 4) to Rs 128.

HDFC at Rs 644 (up Rs 24 or 3.81%), HDFC Bank at Rs 378 (up Rs 9 or 2.49%), Hindalco at Rs 1,217 (up Rs 13 or 1.10%) and Reliance Energy at Rs 767 (up Rs 16 or 2.17%) ended at higher levels.

While Tata Power was up a per cent (Rs 4) at Rs 377, Tisco closed up a rupee at Rs 383.

Grasim shot up 3.38% (Rs 35) to Rs 1,069. While Gujarat Ambuja advanced 2.82% (Rs 8) to Rs 295, ACC rose 1.72% (Rs 4) to Rs 255. L&T ascended by 3% (Rs 17) to Rs 574.

Bajaj notched up 3% gains (Rs 27) to close at Rs 910. Hero Honda (up Rs 12 or 2.51% to Rs 490) and Tata Motors (up Rs 17 or 3.53% to Rs 486) also rallied sharply following steep buying support.

Cipla jumped 2.60% (Rs 30) to Rs 1,170. While Ranbaxy clocked a per cent gain (Rs 10) to Rs 942, Dr. Reddy's was up Rs 2 at Rs 974.

Infosys, however, reeled under selling pressure since opening deals, and dropped 1.98% (Rs 100) to close at Rs 4,938. Satyam (down Rs 8 or 2.64% to Rs 293) and Wipro (down Rs 17 or 1.26% to Rs 1,359), too, ended with losses.