The Sensex, which had lost 434 points yesterday, bounced back to close 124.72 points higher at 15,915.65, backed by a rise in blue chips in realty, metal and refinery sectors. After a reasonably high 142 gap-up opening, the index touched the day's high of 15,951.07 points.
Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty 50 rose 38.60 points to 4,757.25, after touching the day's high of 4,768.15 points. The index opened a good 42.25 points higher.
Both the bourses were opened for a special 90-minute session as the National Stock Exchange wanted to test an upgraded platform.
The market had tumbled in the previous two sessions, tracking their global peers who crashed on worries over European economic recovery as a few Eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, etc were on the brink of a sovereign default while the Portuguese government could not get enough buyers for its bonds amid rising worries over the historic unemployment rates in the Western European nation.
The world markets were also spooked by an unexpectedly high American jobless data in January, which pulled down global commodities markets including metals, crude and gold.
Marketmen said there was buying interest in high beta stocks today as they were hammered to very attractive lows over the past two days of market mayhem.
They said a possible recovery in Asian on Monday following the not so bad closing of the Wall Street overnight has also influenced trading sentiment to some extent.
Among the 30 Sensex stocks, 28 advanced with only Bharti Airtel and Hero Honda declining on profit booking. All the sectoral indices led by realty, metals and oil and gas ended also in the green.
Reliance and Infosys, the heaviest two stocks on the Sensex which together carry nearly 23 per cent weight on the index, shot up on brisk buying by investors and funds, as the prices reached to recent lows. The RIL shot up by Rs 12.40 to Rs 993.70 and Infosys by Rs 37.30 to Rs 2,389.50. RIL had touched a 52 week low yesterday.
The realty sector index gained the most by rising 2.14 per cent to 3,320.05 as stocks of JP Associates and DLF recorded handsome gains. The metal index was second best performer by adding 1.60 per cent to 15,608.38 points followed by oil and gas index by 1.21 per cent to 9,694.48.
The IT index rose by 1.04 per cent to 4,845.86, power index by 1.91 per cent to 2,974.49, tech index by 0.97 per cent to 3,075.17, auto index by 0.94 per cent to 6,864.29, capital goods index by 0.89 per cent to 12,910.54 and PSU index by 0.87 per cent to 9,187.45.
With the buying activity spilling over a wide front, the Smallcaps index rose by 1.54 per cent to 8,197.93 points while Midcaps index by 1.40 per cent to 6,435.93 points.