Mumbai: The Sensex today opened with a huge FALL 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 Sensex, however, staged a recovery thereafter following SEBI chairman''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.