Mumbai: Fresh buying in technology counters at lower levels helped the SENSEX to wipe out major part of early losses on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), registering a 31 points recovery from the day's low level, but the closing level of 3024.35 was still 15.95 points weaker than the September 19 close.

The initial nervousness due to the lowering of India's long-term and short-term local currency sovereign rating by S&P on September 19 was, however, short- lived.

As a reaction to the report, heavyweights like HLL, RIL and Zee Telefilms had fallen sharply, which caused the sharp fall in SENSEX.

However, after the strong criticism of S&P rating by industry chambers, saying that "it is nothing but a knee-jerk reaction of S&P to the temporary deferment in disinvestment of oil sector PSUs", share prices, particularly from the IT segment, bounced back on good buying support.

Meanwhile, a slew of negative news continued to rock the Wall Street where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ Composite Index tumbled further by nearly 230 and 36 points on September 19 night. Sharply weak Asian markets on September 20 also partly affected the market sentiment.

The BSE-30 share Sensitive Index opened sharply down at 3010.14 and dipped further below the 3000-psychological level to 2993.78. Later, the SENSEX moved to a high of 3030.8 before closing at 3024.35, still showing a fall of 15.95 over the September 19 close of 3040.30.

PTI