Equity benchmark Sensex on Tuesday plunged nearly 624 points, the steepest single-day fall in over a month, dragged down by losses across the board as the long-lasting US-China trade war, Hong Kong protests and Argentine currency crash spooked investors.

Investors were also jittery over domestic macro challenges such as a sluggish economy and falling consumer demand in various sectors.

The Nifty, too, tumbled nearly 184 points to settle below the key 11000-level at 10925.85.

Bucking the overall downtrend, shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) rallied nearly 10 per cent, capping the Sensex loss to a large extent.

After diving nearly 700 points in the fag-end of the session, the 30-share Sensex settled 623.75 points, or 1.66 per cent, lower at 36958.16. It hit an intra-day low of 36888.49 and a high of 37755.16.

Top losers in the Sensex pack included Yes Bank, M&M, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Maruti, Tata Steel and L&T, cracking up to 10.35 per cent. Sectorally, BSE telecom, auto, capital goods, finance, tech, power, industrials and IT indices ended up to 4.34 per cent lower.

Continuing their bearish outlook, foreign investors sold equities worth Rs 638.28 crore on a net basis on Tuesday.

Auto stocks plunged after the industry body reported that automobile sales in India witnessed its sharpest decline in nearly 19 years in July.

Rupee plunges

The rupee plunged 62 paise on Tuesday to close at a nearly six-month low of 71.40 against the US dollar in line with battered equities.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 71.15 and touched a high of 71.02 and low of 71.40 against the dollar.

The rupee had closed at 70.78 against the American currency on Friday.