Mumbai, Nov 19 :The 30 scrip sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) drifted lower for the sixth consecutive session today by 163.42 points to end at 8773.78 points on renewed selling pressure by Foreign Institutional Investors and dismal cues from European markets.

The Sensex resumed high at 8970.67 points, surged by 33.47 points, and later recorded the day's high at 9236.27 and a low at 8726.80. However, it jumped by 509.47 points in intra day trade.

The Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed flat at 2682.75 and later registered the day's high at 2772.40 and a low at 2617.90. Finally, it closed in negative terrain at 2635.00 with a small loss of 48.15.

The markets wiped out earlier gains in the last hour of trade and ended on a weak note. However, at the start of trade, it looked like the markets would reverse this trend and hold on to their psychological levels, but that did not happen. The Nifty closed below 2,650 level while the Sensex settled below 8,800.

Selling pressure was seen in capital goods, power, banking, oil, metal, telecom and technology stocks. Midcap and small cap stocks also followed the same trend, due to which breadth remained weak.

On the global front, European markets were trading weak. FTSE was down 77 points to 4,134. CAC and DAX fell 52 points and 62 points to 3,165 and 4,517, respectively.

US futures were also witnessing selling pressure. The Dow Jones Futures was down 119 points to 8,375 and the Nasdaq Futures went down 21 points to 1,153 and Asian markets ended lower barring Shanghai. Hang Seng lost 0.77 pc and Nikkei fell 0.66 pc. Taiwan and Jakarta tumbled 0.49 pc and 0.80 pc, respectively. Straits Times and Kospi fell 1.59 pc and 1.87 pc.

The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 3538 crore today as compared to a turnover of Rs 3,031.86 crore yesterday. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned weak from an earlier positive position. 786 shares rose as compared with 1,711 that declined. A total of 76 shares remained unchanged.