The Sensex and the Nifty hit 10-week lows on Thursday, heading for their seventh straight session of falls, as blue-chips such as Housing Development Finance slumped on concerns about foreign investors after Saudi Arabia launched air strikes in Yemen.

At 2.30 p.m., the 30-share BSE index Sensex was trading lower by 440.14 points or 1.57 per cent at 27,671.69 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was trading down by 128.5 points or 1.51 per cent at 8,402.30.

Both the indexes were heading towards their lowest close since January 14.

Barring capital goods, all other BSE sectoral indices were trading significantly in the red. Among them, banking index fell the most by 1.98 per cent, followed by IT 1.92 per cent, metal 1.74 per cent and TECk 1.48 per cent, while capital goods index was up 0.26 per cent.

Major Sensex losers were HDFC 4.82percent, Coal India 3.05percent, Infosys 2.96percent, ICICI Bank 2.73percent and HUL 2.52percent, while the top five gainers were Bharti Airtel 1.14percent, L&T 0.77percent, Hero MotoCorp 0.44percent, GAIL 0.28percent and BHEL 0.13percent.

Companies with heavy foreign institutional holdings like HDFC, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank led the declines.

However, telecommunications stocks rose, with Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular gaining on hopes of winning key 900 Mhz spectrum.

Tensions in West Asia come at a time of rising concerns foreign investors will pare some of their positions in India. Overseas funds sold index futures worth 1,386 crore ($221.2 million) on Wednesday ahead of monthly derivative expiry and end of the fiscal year.

European shares fell on Thursday, with the London Stock Exchange leading the market lower on news that Borse Dubai will sell its full stake in the company and ARM Holdings extending the previous session's steep losses, tracking its weaker US peers.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.9 per cent at 1,572.27 points by 0817 GMT, after falling more than 1 per cent in the previous session.

Asian shares also fell after Saudi Arabia and Gulf region allies launched military operations including air strikes in Yemen on Thursday to counter Iran-allied forces besieging the southern city of Aden where the US-backed Yemeni president had taken refuge.

"We think the market will drag for some time. There is a huge currency risk. And there are no near-term triggers," said Deven Choksey, managing director, KR Choksey Securities.

Early trade

The Nifty and the Sensex opened with a gap down on weak global cues. The Nifty opened 56 points down at 8,475, while the Sensex opened 174 points, down at 27,938.

A report by SMC Investments and Advisors said: "Asian stocks slid following the US stocks as dearth of activity in markets failed to provide support. US stocks ended low as decelerating growth and declining dollar led to a sell off. With orders for transportation equipment showing a notable pullback, the Commerce Department released a report showing that new orders for USmanufactured durable goods unexpectedly decreased in the month of February. The report said durable goods orders fell by 1.4 per cent in February following a downwardly revised 2.0 per cent increase in January. The drop in orders came as a surprise to economists, who had expected orders to climb by 0.7 per cent compared to the 2.8 per cent jump that had been reported for the previous month.''

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