After a depressing start and a subsequent sharp fall, Indian equities made a smart recovery this morning on the back of some spirited buying action in some of the frontline stocks.

IT, power and consumer goods gained ground, whereas realty and banking stocks went down due to the expected rate cut not happening during the last weekend.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index gained 0.11% and 0.31% respectively.  

At 11:00 a.m., the 30-share index BSE Sensex, which tumbled to a low of 8708.85 after opening at 8840.53, rallied to 8,961.14, up 45.93 points.

Meanwhile, the broad-based Nifty, which spurted to a high of 2721.25 from 2641.65, stood at 2,687.95, down 5.50 points.

The overall breadth of the market was positive as it was 965 progressions as against 841 declinations.

The major gainers in the 30-share index included Tata Consultancy Services, which gained 2.73%, Larsen & Toubro zoomed 1.81%, ACC climbed 1.64%, Infosys Technologies profited 1.29%, NTPC surged 1.10% and Hindalco Industries increased 0.96%.

The biggest losers in the Sensex were DLF, which lost 5.42%, Sterlite Industries (India) declined 3.70%, ICICI Bank fell 3.31%, HDFC Bank dropped 2.86%, Grasim Industries rejected 1.63% and Mahindra & Mahindra slumped 1.05%.