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Indian equity benchmarks ended lower on Thursday with Sensex and Nifty settling below 58,800 and 17,550 mark respectively, mainly dragged by telecom, realty and industrials stocks amid weak global cues. Markets made gap-down opening and traded under pressure throughout the day, as India's gross domestic product (GDP) rose 13.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the April-June period. Though, it is the fastest annual expansion in a year, it was lower than the predictions made by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI; 16.2 per cent) and other market participants. Traders were concerned as the data of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) showed that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows into India contracted by 6% to $16.59 billion during the April-June quarter this fiscal. However, markets recovered much of their initial losses in morning deals, taking support from Finance Secretary T V Somanathan’s statement that the government is confident that India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth will exceed 7 per cent in 2022-23 (FY23). This will make it the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

But, key gauges failed to hold recovery and fell sharply in late afternoon deals, as some pessimism remained among traders as report stated that India's manufacturing activity improved again in August, although S&P Global's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged down to 56.2 from the eight-month high of 56.4 recorded in July. Market participants  remained cautious as Moody’s Investors Service has lowered its gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for India to 7.7 percent for the calendar year 2022 (CY22). The global credit rating agency also lowered India's GDP forecast for CY23 to 5.2 percent from 5.4 percent. Adding more worries, the output of eight core infrastructure sectors contracted to six-month low of 4.5 per cent in July 2022 against 9.9 per cent in the year-ago period. The production growth of eight infrastructure sectors was 13.2 per cent in June 2022.

On the global front, European markets were trading lower amid worries that aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and other central banks in Europe and Asia will dent economic growth. Asian markets finished in red on Thursday as data showed the region's factory hubs saw further easing in demand in August. Hawkish comments from another Federal Reserve official on inflation and the pace of future rate rises also weighed on sentiment.

Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 770.48 points or 1.29% to 58,766.59 and the CNX Nifty was down by 216.50 points or 1.22% to 17,542.80.

The BSE Sensex touched high and low of 59,309.79 and 58,522.57, respectively. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.57%, while Small cap index was up by 0.48%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 2.20%, Realty up by 1.07%, Industrials up by 0.90%, Capital Goods up by 0.70% and Consumer Discretionary up by 0.32%, while Energy down by 1.99%, Oil & Gas down by 1.77%, IT down by 1.68%, Metal down by 1.56% and TECK down by 1.41% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finserv up by 2.58%, Asian Paints up by 1.63%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.18%, Titan Company up by 0.78% and SBI up by 0.40%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.99%, TCS down by 2.49%, Sun Pharma down by 2.42%, Tech Mahindra down by 2.15% and Hindustan Unilever down by 1.99% were the top losers