The Sensex, which commenced the day lower by 446 points down, bounced back to close with a gain of 251.88 points at 19,976.23 after shying away from the intra-day peak of over 20,000 points. It touched the day's high of 20,025.63 points and a low of 19,255.77, showing a gap of nearly 770 points.

Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty surged 59.95 points at 5,926.40, after touching the day's high of 5,944.75 and a low of 5,714.25 points.

The market remained weak in early trade in line with a weakening global trend but recovered on emergence of buying by funds following reports of a decline in inflation rate.

The late buying was more confined to sectors like banking, capital goods, metal and public sector undertaking.

Banking index gained 389.84 points at 11,241.53 followed by capital goods index by 245.22 points at 20386.41.