Mumbai: The benchmark Nifty plummeted to six-week low and closed below the key 8,300-mark on across the board selling Thursday at the NSE amid global woes as the market reeled under pressure after overnight mild relief.
A weak rupee, which tumbled to its lowest level in more than nine months, also cast its shadow on equities.
Barring healthcare, all sectoral indices succumbed to massive unwinding.
The stock market came under fresh selling pressure after an overnight brief rebound with heavyweight energy stocks leading the fall.
A sharp plunge in world stock markets after US shares suffered their steepest fall in two months on renewed worries over faltering global economy rattled Indian bourses.
The 50-share Nifty tumbled by a hefty 62.75 points, or 0.75 percent, to end at 8,292.90 after touching an intra-day low of 8,272.40 on the National Stocks Exchange (NSE).
Energy shares were the weakest performers of the day with PSU major ONGC and Reliance dropping 3.23 and 2.83 percent, respectively.
Other major players in the sector like GAIL, Cairn India, BPCL and HPCL were also battered.
Global crude prices tumbled below USD 65 a barrel for the first time in more than five years after oil cartel OPEC scaled down forecasts of demand to lowest level in a decade.
Other top losers were Infosys, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, TCS, Hero Moto, SBI, HCL Tech, L&T, Wipro, Tata Power, Cipla, Ultra Tech, NTPC, Grasim, Power Grid and Asian Paints.
However, FMCG giant ITC along with select pharma stocks like Lupin, Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's Lab withstood the fall and posted gains.
Sugar stocks were in limelight after the Centre hiked price of ethanol for blending with petrol.
Turnover in the cash segment jumped to Rs 16,408.96 crore from Rs 15,513.22 crore yesterday. A total of 7,929.53 lakh shares changed hands in 74,18,988 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 95,28,730 crore.
