Indian equity benchmarks extended losses dragged by banking and financial shares as futures and options contracts for September series expired.

The S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.6 percent or 218 points to 36,234 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index dropped 0.7 percent or 76 points to 10,978.

Nifty logged in the worst futures and option series since February as it fell 5.99 percent.

In today’s trade, seventeen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended lower led by the S&P BSE Realty Index’s 2.8 percent drop. On the other hand, the S&P BSE IT Index was top gainer, up 0.77 percent.