Mumbai, Jan 20 Outflow of foreign funds plunged India's key equity indices S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 deeply in the red on Thursday.
Besides, global inflationary woes as well as rise in crude oil prices supported the downtrend.
Consequently, Sensex settled at 59,464 points, down 1.06 per cent or 634 points, whereas Nifty at 17,757 points, down 1.01 per cent or 181 points, from its previous close.
Globally, Asian stocks shrugged off Wall Street jitters after China cut interest rates to shore up flagging economic growth and Japan reported a double-digit rise in exports.
Similarly, European stocks were cautiously higher on Thursday, as investors appeared to brush off concerns about rampant inflation.
Among sectors, barring Nifty realty and metal, all sectoral indices traded on a negative note. Nifty FMCG, IT and pharma slumped the most, NSE data showed.
"Nifty fell sharply for the third consecutive session despite global markets stabilising during the course of the day. Nifty opened flat and fell through the day with minimal intraday bounces," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.
"Going by this, the weakness seems to be driven by institutional selling," he added.
On the stocks front, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Auto, Divi's Labs, Infosys, and TCS declined the most on Thursday.
On the other hand, Power Grid Corporation, Bharti Airtel, Grasim Industries, JSW Steel, and Tata Consumers managed to survive the weak market sentiment and rose the most during the session, data showed.
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