Indian benchmark indices extended their losing streak for a third consecutive session on July 22, as rising crude oil prices, a sharp decline in the rupee, and profit booking in heavyweight stocks weighed on investor sentiment.

The market opened lower, tracking mixed global cues, and witnessed sustained selling through most of the session, dragging the Nifty 50 to an intraday low of 23,961.40. However, buying in select heavyweight and defensive stocks helped the benchmark recover part of its losses, though it still settled below the 24,000 mark.

At close, the Sensex was down 715.06 points or 0.92 percent at 76,755.05, and the Nifty was down 191.45 points or 0.79 percent at 23,996.25.

The broader market mirrored the weakness in the benchmark indices, with the Nifty Midcap 100 declining 1% and the Nifty Smallcap 100 falling 1.5%.

Biggest Nifty losers were Interglobe Aviation, Jio Financial, Infosys, SBI, Dr Reddy's Labs, while gainers included Bajaj Auto, Nestle, Tata Consumer, Power Grid Corp, ONGC.

Sectoral performance remained largely negative, with Nifty FMCG emerging as the top gainer, rising 0.65%, followed by Nifty Auto up 0.18%.

On the downside, Nifty Media was the worst-performing sector, falling 2.68%, followed by Nifty Realty (-2.6%), Nifty PSU Bank (-1.8%), Nifty Private Bank (-1.4%), Nifty IT (-1.5%), Nifty Bank (-1.2%), Nifty Pharma (-1.3%), Nifty Consumer Durables (-0.86%), Nifty Infra (-0.85%), Nifty Oil & Gas (-0.6%), Nifty Metal (-0.48%), and Nifty Energy (-0.3%).

More than 100 stocks touched their 52-week high on the BSE, including Bajaj Auto, Chennai Petro, Nestle, IndusInd Bank, Titan Company, Manappuram Finance, Nykaa, Solar Industries, Gujarat Fluoro, Federal Bank, Sona BLW, Aditya Birla Capital, Ajanta Pharma, among others.

The Indian rupee ended 33 paise lower at 96.57 per US dollar on Wednesday, compared with Tuesday's closing level of 96.24.

Among individual stocks, Emami Paper surged 20% after reporting a more than six-fold jump in Q1 profit. Cyient DLM advanced 11% on the back of a sharp improvement in quarterly earnings, while TVS Holdings gained 4% after posting robust June quarter results. Viviana Power Tech also rose 4% after securing multiple turnkey contracts from an existing client.

On the downside, Bandhan Bank tumbled 16% despite reporting a 35% YoY rise in Q1 profit to ?501.7 crore. MedPlus Health declined 11% as its Q1 profit fell 22%, while Sunteck Realty slipped 7% despite a 27% increase in quarterly profit. Gabriel India fell 4.5% despite decent Q1 earnings, Aurobindo Pharma shed 2% after its subsidiary CuraTeQ Biologics received ANVISA approval for its Hyderabad biosimilars manufacturing facility, and Tata Communications edged 1% lower after reporting a 29.4% YoY decline in Q1 net profit.