The Sensex opened 12 points lower at 13,838, and soon touched a low of 13,798. Fresh buying, thereafter, helped the index rebound into the positive zone and zip past the 14,000-mark.

The Sensex rallied to a high of 14,206 - up 408 points from the day's low. The index pared some gains towards the close and eventually finished with a gain of 254 points at 14,104.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,657 stocks trade,d 1,850 advanced, 733 declined and 74 were unchanged today.

The NSE Nifty gained 81 points at 4,240.

Index movers...

Reliance Infrastructure zoomed nearly 7% to Rs 919.

BHEL, ITC and Wipro [Get Quote] soared 6% each to Rs 1,598, Rs 190 and Rs 395, respectively.

Cipla and Reliance Communications [Get Quote] surged 5% each to Rs 238 and Rs 468, respectively.

Tata Steel [Get Quote] gained 4.3% at Rs 624. ACC rallied 4% to Rs 565.

SBI [Get Quote] moved up 3.7% to Rs 1,398. Mahindra & Mahindra and Hindalco [Get Quote] added 3.3% each to Rs 546 and Rs 147, respectively.

HDFC [Get Quote] advanced nearly 3% to Rs 2,146. ICICI Bank [Get Quote], TCS [Get Quote] and Larsen & Toubro gained around 2.5% each at Rs 661, Rs 834 and Rs 2,572, respectively.

Grasim [Get Quote], Hindustan Unilever and NTPC were up around 2% each to Rs 1,765, Rs 233 and Rs 185, respectively.

...and the shakers

Maruti [Get Quote] plunged over 9% to Rs 588.

Jaiprakash Associates [Get Quote] tumbled over 4% to Rs 159. Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] dropped 2.5% to Rs 779.

DLF and Tata Motors [Get Quote] shed 2% each at Rs 454 and Rs 412, respectively.

Value & volume toppers

Reliance Capital [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 424.30 crore followed by Reliance Infrastructure (Rs 254.35 crore), Reliance (Rs 218 crore), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 160.85 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] (Rs 160 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.21 crore shares followed by IDFC [Get Quote] (1.23 crore), IFCI (1.20 crore), Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] (95.30 lakh) and Ispat Industries [Get Quote] (72.25 lakh).