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Indian equity benchmarks slipped for a third straight session on Wednesday, as dull corporate earnings and sustained foreign selling overpowered early gains and a rise in shares of non-bank lender Bajaj Finance.

The NSE Nifty 50 closed down 0.15% to 24,435.5 points as of 3:30 p.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex inched down 0.17% to 80,082 points.

The indexes had logged their worst session in three weeks on Tuesday as foreign selling, which is set to hit a record monthly high, continued for the 17th straight day. The benchmark Nifty has shed about 7% since touching an all-time high on Sept. 27.

Goldman Sachs has downgraded Indian equities to "neutral" from "overweight", citing slowing economic growth weighing on corporate earnings.

Earlier in the day, India's benchmark indexes gained as much as 0.4%, with Bajaj Finance rising after its management indicated credit costs had peaked, and as information technology stocks also rose.

Still, "bears eventually took over the steering wheel", Aishvarya Dadheech, CIO of Fident Asset Management, said.

"We expect these fluctuations to continue until there is any meaningful slowdown in foreign outflows or an improvement in quarterly earnings."

Two-wheeler maker TVS Motor Company ended 3.7% lower after its quarterly earnings missed expectations.

Refiner Chennai Petroleum slumped 11% after reporting a second-quarter loss.

On the flip side, payments firm Paytm jumped 8.5% after getting approval to onboard new unified payment interface users.

The more domestically-focussed small- and mid-caps rose 1.3% and 0.6%, respectively, recouping some of the previous session's sharp losses.

A post-results jump in IT firms Coforge and Persistent Systems lifted the heavyweight IT index by 2.4%, its best day since mid-August.

($1 = 84.0860 Indian rupees)