Fresh from yesterday's turnover tax woes, the Sensex today opened with a huge negative gap of 78 points at 4,766 and quickly lost another 43 points to touch a low of 4,723 on across-the-board selling pressure in early deals.

The markets, however, staged a recovery thereafter following Sebi chief's assurance that turnover tax would be implemented only after the finance bill is passed in the parliament.

While steady gains kept the markets ticking till mid-noon deals, unabated buying in counters like ITC, Maruti, Bharti, ONGC, Tata Motors and Tisco fuelled the rally, which saw the index zoom to an intra-day high of 4,954 towards the closing hours.

The Sensex finally wrapped up the trading session with a huge spurt of 101 points at 4,945. The Nifty advanced 35 points to 1,553, off its intra-day low of 1,473.

While 26 Sensex stocks advanced, four declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.99 crore amounting to Rs 772.75 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 36 lakh for Rs 88.57 crore.

Heavyweight, PSU and other select old economy counters ended on a buoyant note.

ITC mopped up significant gains on the back of a strong buying support, and vaulted 8.19% (Rs 80) to Rs 1,057. Reliance moved up 1.46% (Rs 6) to Rs 439. HLL, however, ended weak with a loss of 1.45% (Rs 2) at Rs 122.

ONGC jumped 3.49% (Rs 23) to Rs 671. While BHEL moved up 2.60% (Rs 14) to Rs 536, SBI mopped up 2.65% gains (Rs 11) to Rs 429.

MTNL, which traded lower in early deals, bounced back into the green to end with a gain of 3.36% (Rs 4) at Rs 134. HPCL, however, slumped nearly 6% (Rs 18) to close at Rs 289.

Bharti, following the FDI hike in telecom sector to 74% in yesterday's budget announcement, attracted considerable buying support today, and surged 6.43% (Rs 10) to close at Rs 158.

Tisco advanced 3.48% (Rs 10) to Rs 307. ICICI Bank at Rs 244 (up Rs 6 or 2.60%), Tata Power at Rs 254 (up Rs 3 or 1.29%) and Zee at Rs 127 (up Rs 3 or 2.45%) ended with decent gains.

While select auto and pharma majors attracted considerable buying, tech and cement pivotals ended on a decent note.

Maruti flared up 6.33% (Rs 25) to Rs 428. Tata Motors soared 5.78% (Rs 23) to Rs 416. While Hero Honda added 1.25% (Rs 6) to Rs 498, Bajaj closed with a modest gain of Rs 5 at Rs 915.

Ranbaxy surged 2% (Rs 20) to Rs 983. While Dr. Reddy's gains 2.33% (Rs 17) to Rs 763, Cipla was up 1.41% (Rs 3) at Rs 230.

Infosys advanced 2.30% (Rs 31) to Rs 1,383. While Satyam closed up a rupee at Rs 306, Wipro, however, ended a rupee weaker at Rs 500.

Gujarat Ambuja added 2.81% (Rs 8) to Rs 282. While ACC was up 1.45% (Rs 3) at Rs 241, Grasim closed up a notch at Rs 1,024.

Hindalco, however, witnessed selling in its counter, and lost 1.70% (Rs 19) to close at Rs 1,079.