Mumbai, May 16: An immensely volatile session in the stock market today saw the sensex oscillating 575.55 points in intra-day trading.

After the nosedive yesterday ? the fall was the second largest in almost two years ? the 30-scrip sensex covered its losses to end the day in black.

“Bargain hunting at lower levels coupled with short covering saw the market make a bounceback, which pulled it off sharply from the lower levels. Mutual funds have a lot of cash and they would be coming in to buy at lower levels,” said R. Sreesankar, head of research, IL&FS Investsmart.

Starting on a weak note, the sensex plunged to 11378.96 points before settling at 11873.73, up 0.55 per cent, or 51.53 points, from yesterday’s close. The index touched an intra day high of 11954.51. Nifty was up 20.35 points, or 0.58 per cent, at 3523.30.

The comeback was staged in the last hour on the back of a solid rally in cement shares. Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys surged in late trading.

The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 5,229 crore today compared with Rs 5,128 crore on Monday. However, the market breadth was negative ?641 shares advanced, 1,807 declined, and 37 shares remained unchanged.

“The markets began on a weak note taking advices from the global and Asian markets. The commodity scrips also started lower as the London Metal Exchange started weak. However, once LME started recovering, the Indian markets also caught up,” said V. K. Sharma of Anagram Securities.

Asian markets remained weak today, but the fall was not as severe as yesterday. Markets in Indonesia and Malaysia ended off intra-day lows, while the Philippines market was up by 0.88 per cent.

“Markets will take further cues from various factors such as global markets, interest rate movements and international liquidity. The markets shall be characterised by bouts of volatility and one should not expect such phenomenal returns as the market gave in the last one year,” added Sreesankar.

Since the middle of last month the markets have been prone to intermittent bouts of volatility. From an all-time closing high of 12612.38 on May 10, the sensex lost as much as 1233 or 9.7 per cent in less than a week, when it had declined to an intra-day low of 11378.96 today.

“Since the market covered up all its losses, technically it seems to be on sound grounds. Tomorrow, the market should trade on the stronger side,” said Sharma.