Mumbai, Nov 19 (IANS): Profit booking along with a global sell-off due to concerns over rising Coronavirus cases pulled the Indian equity markets lower on Thursday.

Accordingly, the Indian equity benchmark indices fell the most in nearly a month.

In terms of global markets, the European markets came under selling pressure due to lockdown related fears.

Back home, volumes on the NSE were the highest in 6 days.

Segmentwise, banking, auto, IT, realty were the main losing indices while FMCG and media index gained.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) lost 166.55 points, or 1.29 per cent, to close at 12,771.70 points.

Similarly, the S&P BSE Sensex, which opened at 43,902.24 points, closed at 43,599.96 points -- down 580.09 points, or 1.31 per cent -- from its previous close of 44,180.05 points.

"World stocks fell for the third day in a row on Thursday tracking overnight weakness in Asia and Wall Street as widening Covid-19 limitations weighed on market sentiments," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

"There is a slight damage to the bullish sentiment in the markets. In case we do not get another negative trigger soon, we could recover from this setback."