On Thursday Equity benchmark indices dropped in early trade, falling for the second day running, following weak trends in global markets and fresh foreign fund outflows.
Disappointing earnings from IT services company Wipro also dragged the benchmarks lower.
The Sensex dropped 490.44 points to 65,386.58. The Nifty dropped 137.5 points to 19,533.60.
Among the Sensex companies, Wipro fell nearly 4 per cent after the IT services firm reported an almost flat consolidated net profit of Rs 2,667.3 crore for the September quarter, trailing street expectations, and forecasting a 3.5 per cent drop in revenue in the current quarter due to a weak global economic outlook and an uncertain business environment.
Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Power Grid, Bajaj Finance, Tata Motors, Bajaj Finserv and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the other major laggards.
The gainers are IndusInd Bank and ITC.
In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading in the negative territory.
On Wednesday, The US markets closed lower.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude dropped 0.52 per cent to USD 91.02 a barrel.
According to the exchange data, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,831.84 crore on Wednesday.
“Investors face various pressing concerns, including divestment by foreign institutional investors, the Israel-Palestine conflict, lacklustre corporate performance, rising US treasury yields, and an upcoming speech by Jerome Powell (Fed Chair),” Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research) at Mehta Equities Ltd, said.
On Wednesday, the BSE benchmark had plunged 551.07 points or 0.83 per cent to settle at 65,877.02 on Wednesday. The Nifty declined 140.40 points or 0.71 per cent to 19,671.10.
