Sensex tanks 900 pts, Nifty ends below 18,500, all sectors in red

Asian stocks tracked the overnight dip in Wall Street and ended in red for the most part including Tokyo and China.

China and Hong dragged amidst rising Covid cases and a fall in factory output in November.

European markets were also trading lower ahead of ECB's interest rate announcement.

Indices sink more than a per cent on Thursday as Sensex closes below 62,000 and Nifty below 18,500

Indices came under pressure and tanked steeply, especially in the final hour, on Thursday.

Indian investors shared the pessimistic sentiment with their global peers after Fed maintained its hawkish tone on Wednesday.

Sensex went below 62,000 to close at 61,800, a drop of 878 points. Meanwhile, Nifty closed below 18,500, at 18,414, and shed 245 points in the process.

All sectoral indices closed in the red with IT, Media, and PSU coming under tremendous pressure, each shedding around 2%.

Britannia and Hero MotorCorp were the only stocks to have registered a decent gain. Tech Mahindra shed around 4% followed by Titan, Infosys, Grasim and Eicher Motors, each dropping more than 2%.

Asian stocks ended in the red tracking overnight losses on Wall Street, as concerns around corporate outlook rose after the U.S. Federal Reserve projected continuing with interest rate hikes for a longer period.

Japanese shares ended lower on Thursday with the Nikkei ending 0.37% lower after briefly turning positive. The broader Topix inched down 0.18%.

China and Hong Kong stocks fell on Thursday, tracking subdued Asian peers amidst China's rising COVID-19 cases and worse-than-expected factory output and retail sales data for November.

China's blue-chip CSI300 Index dipped 0.1% at the close, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.3%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 1.6%.

European shares slipped on Thursday as nervous investors awaited an interest rate decision from the bloc's central bank. The region-wide STOXX 600 was down 0.9% in the morning session.