A fall in the Dow Futures, coupled with weak Asian and European cues, pushed Indian benchmark indices lower. Some profit booking was also witnessed after the recent rally, in which the Nifty had gained almost 800 points from low levels.

The Nifty ended the day lower by 182 points at 10,601 points, while the Sensex shed 572 points at 35,312 points, on bearish sentiments. Worst hit were the metal stocks, on worries that global growth could slow. Tata Steel, Vedanta and JSW Steel came in for some serious selling pressure.

Banking stocks once again came in for some serious selling pressure, following the RBI monetary policy. Kotak Mahindra Bank and SBI were leading the set of losers from the Nifty. Auto stocks too were weak, with Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors and Maruti seeing some selling pressure.

Even IT stocks were seeing some selling pressure with Infosys dropping more than 2 per cent and HCL Tech dropping 3 per cent.

Maruti saw its shares dive almost 4 per cent, after vehicles sales in the last few months disappointed the street.

Meanwhile, Asian markets also ended the day extremely weak, while Europe was trading significantly lower. The German DAX was down almost 2.5 per cent, while the French CAC saw losses of almost 2.23 per cent.

Meanwhile, the rupee fell by 40 paise at 70.87 to the dollar.

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