MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex nosedived over 380 points on Wednesday to close at below 20K level on heavy selling by foreign funds on recession worries on Wall Street, amid investors liquidating their holdings in secondary markets to invest in mega issue of Reliance Power.
The 30-share BSE barometer, which had lost nearly 477 points in yesterday's trading, fell further by 382.98 points to end at 19,868.11.
The Sensex had plummeted to the day's low of 19,513.25 points and touched high of 20,079.89 points in intra-day as blue-chip Reliance Group stocks of both the Ambani brothers fell sharply.
In similar fashion, the National Stock Exchange index Nifty also dropped by 138.50 points at 5,935.75, after dipping to day's low of 5,825.75 and the high of 6,065 points.
Trading sentiment turned bearish following reports of Citigroup, the world's leading bank, disclosed losses, giving indication of a deepening crisis in the global financial markets.
Marketmen said the weak trend in global stock markets on recession concerns melt most of the financial markets, including stocks and bullion.
They said liquidity was also being sucked out towards the Reliance Power IPO, India's largest public offering, which was oversubscribed over 11 times by Wednesday afternoon.
The market dip to lowest levels in over three-month time during intra-day trading as most of the heavyweight stocks moved in negative zone, they added.
The major impact to the market came from a weakening Realty which lost 596.18 points at 12,825.31, followed by metal by 590.38 points at 18,020.25.
Capital goods index fell by 473.11 points to 18,673.80, PSU index by 232.79 points to 10,071.51, oil and gas index by 206.35 points to 13,650.13 and power index by 189.94 points to 4462.33.
