The Sensex opened almost flat at 8,906 - up three points amid mixed cues from the global markets. The index soon slipped to a low of 8,788 led by heavy selling in banking stocks.

However, selective buying thereafter helped the index recoup losses. A strong wave of short-covering, owing to the February derivatives expiry today, towards the end saw the index rebound into the positive zone and surge to a high of 8,998.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 52 points at 8,955.

The NSE Nifty closed at 2786, up 23 points.

The BSE Auto index rallied 2.7% to 2,694. The Oil & Gas and IT indices surged over 1% each to 6,165 and 2,111, respectively. The Bankex, however, dropped over 2% to 4,185.

The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 2,448 stocks traded, 1,339 declined, 1,016 advanced and the rest were unchanged on Thursday.

INDEX MOVERS...

Tata Motors [Get Quote] zoomed over 7% to Rs 150 helped by the company's announcement of March 23 as the launch date of 'Nano'.

Maruti [Get Quote] rallied 5% to Rs 696. Grasim [Get Quote] soared 3.7% to Rs 1,459.

Reliance Communications [Get Quote] and ONGC [Get Quote] moved up nearly 3% each to Rs 159 and Rs 715, respectively.

Sterlite and NTPC gained 2.3% each at Rs 253 and Rs 184, respectively.

Reliance advanced 2% to Rs 1,290. Infosys [Get Quote], BHEL and Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] added 1.5% each to Rs 1,236, Rs 1,402 and Rs 652, respectively.

ITC and HDFC Bank [Get Quote] were up 1% each at Rs 184 and Rs 873, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Ranbaxy [Get Quote] slumped 18% to Rs 170 on the news that the USFDA put all pending and approved ANDAs from the company's Paonta Sahib facility to a list maintained under a policy entitled "Application Integrity Policy". The counter clocked a hefty volume of over 60 lakh shares as against its daily two-week average volume of nearly six lakh shares.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] plunged 4.6% to Rs 325, and HDFC tumbled 3.4% to Rs 1,212.

Hindalco [Get Quote] dropped over 3% to Rs 39. Tata Power [Get Quote] slipped nearly 2% to Rs 731, and SBI [Get Quote] declined 1.3% to Rs 1,024.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Educomp Solutions [Get Quote] topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 193.16 crore followed by Akruti City (Rs 168.41 crore), United Spirits [Get Quote] (Rs 146.80 crore), Reliance (Rs 140.73 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 125.81 crore).

Unitech led the volume chart with trades of around 80.26 lakh shares followed by Satyam [Get Quote] (76.21 lakh), DLF (64.80 lakh), Cals Refineries (61.77 lakh) and Suzlon Energy [Get Quote] (61.38 lakh).