Mumbai, Oct 23 : The benchmark Sensex tumbled by over 488 points and again dipped below the 10,000-mark in early trade on Thursday.

The Indian Rupee also hit a record low of 49.68 against the US dollar at the forex market.

Retail investors dumped stocks due to melting global stock markets and dismal quarterly results by some corporates.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) index Nifty also tumbled by 147.05 points, or 4.13 per cent to 2,918.10.

The 30-share index, which had lost 513.49 points on Wednesday, fell by a whopping 488.62 points, or nearly 4.8 per cent at 9,681.28, a level last seen in July 2006, as all the sectoral indices were trading in negative zone with losses between 2.2 to 5.85 per cent.

Major losers which dragged the Sensex down were Bharti Airtel, L&T, RIL, ICICI Bank, Reliance Infra, BHEL, SBI, Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Satyam Computers, Tata Steel and Wipro.

Meanwhile, the US Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 5.69 per cent last evening, while most of the Asian stock markets were down by almost 6 per cent in opening trade. (ANI)