Stock market crash, March 19 -- A massive sell-off engulfed the Indian stock market on Thursday morning (March 19), causing the benchmark indices-the Sensex and the Nifty 50-to snap their three-day streak of impressive gains.

The Sensex plunged over 2,000 points, or nearly 3%, to an intraday low of 74,685, while the Nifty 50 plunged 600 points, or 2.5%, to the day's low of 23,180.95.

The BSE 150 Midcap and the BSE 250 Smallcap indices crashed 2% each.

Investors' wealth was eroded by more than Rs.9 lakh crore as the overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms dropped to Rs.430 lakh crore from Rs.439 lakh crore in the previous session.

Let's take a look at the key factors behind the stock market crash today:

Contrary to expectati...