The key equity indices declined for the second consecutive session on Thursday dragged down by profit-booking in recent outperforming banking and metal shares.

At close, the BSE Sensex ended 338 points lower at 49,565 while the NSE Nifty 50 index dropped 124 points to close at 14,906.

M&M was the top gainer in the Nifty, up 2.47 percent followed by Cipla and BPCL, which gained2.27 percent and 1.91 percent respectively. IndusInd Bank, Titan Company, L&T, HDFC Life, Ultratech Cement, Infosys, Bajaj Finserv, SBI, Divis Labs were the other losers in the Nifty.

HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank were among the top drags on the Sensex.

Throughout the session,  the benchmarks mainly traded in a narrow band. However, owing to volatility in the last hour of trade ahead of the weekly expiry of index futures and option contracts, the index slipped the range-bound trading. The BSE Sensex fell as much as 406 points and Nifty 50 index dropped below its important psychological level of 15,000.

Metal shares came under selling pressure after the world's largest producer of metals, China, said on Wednesday it would strengthen its management of commodity supply and demand to curb "unreasonable" increases in prices.

Banking, financial services, private banks, CPSE and FMCG indexes also ended with a negative bias. On the other hand, realty and PSU bank indices ended higher.

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