Taking cue from Nasdaq, which lost another 67 points on Friday last, domestic market opened weak and the Sensex opened lower at 4121.86 points and slumped further to 4108.68 level, which happened to be day's lowest level. It reached the day's high of 4186.77 points after the mid-session before closing at 4169.39 points, gaining 32.23 points as compared to Friday's close of 4137.16 points. S&P CNX Nifty also gained five points and closed at 1317.60 points as compared to previous close of 1312.60 points.

``The market was lacklustre in the begining after weak Nasdaq but second-half onwards, driven by smart recovery in HFCL and old economy stocks, the sentiment changed dramatically and helped the market to end in positive territory,'' said Ms Jyoti Vaswani, fund manager with JM Mutual Fund. Dealers said old economy stocks, which lost heavily on Friday on account of profit-taking, recovered partially. BHEL stock was the star performer of the day. It hit the upper circuit of eight per cent and closed at Rs 157.65.

Cement sector stocks continued their upward march after another price hike of Rs 5 per bag was announced on Monday. Gujarat Ambuja Cement topped the list by gaining more than four per cent to close at Rs 165.65, Grasim gained close to four per cent and closed at Rs 290.20, L&T was up by 3.14 per cent at Rs 210.30, ACC recovered marginally by less than one per cent to end the day at Rs 164.55, while India Cements was locked in upper circuit and rose further gaining 8.75 per cent at Rs 57.20. Among the new economy stocks, HFCL was the most active stock, which saw volatile movement and gained close to five per cent to close at Rs 1371.50. Satyam Computers gained nearly two per cent to close at Rs 369.70 while Zee Telefilms was strong after it succeded in withstanding sustained selling pressure. It gained 1.78 per cent to close at Rs 302.45. However, Infosys Technologies was down by one per cent to close at Rs 7104. FMCG counters like HLL and Colgate were in demand and closed with marginal gains at Rs 193.75 andRs 167.30 respectively.

Pharma counters Glaxo and Ranbaxy were also in demand with Glaxo gaining more than two per cent to close at Rs 459.60 and Ranbaxy incrased marginally to close at Rs 728.05. While Knoll Pharma and Cipla attracted profit- booking. Knoll lost 3.63 per cent and closed at Rs 376.15 and Cipla lost 1.60 per cent to close at Rs 1028.50.