Benchmark indices slipped in the last hour of trade to close nearly 0.5 percent lower on Tuesday dragged mainly by financials and IT stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell over 400 points from the day's high to end in red for the ninth straight session. The index ended at 35,353, down 146 points, while the broader NSE Nifty50 fell 119 points from the high point of the day to end with 37 points lower at 10,604.

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Nifty Bank ended the session 31 points higher at 26,685 and Nifty Midcap index 69 points in the green at 16,133, keeping market breadth in favour of advances. NSE Advance-Decline ratio was at 3:2.

"Market opened on a positive note as the transfer of interim dividend from RBI to government helped the indices to rebound after many days of correction. However, the reversal was short lived due to mixed global market & investors’ strategy to book profit on every rally. Albeit, rate-sensitive sectors stand positive due to the stimulus measures from RBI and reforms by the government," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

IT stocks lost ground, with Nifty IT index falling over 2 percent. Wipro was the top drag on the sectoral gauge, losing as much as 3.2 percent, followed by TCS, Infosys and Tech Mahindra down in the range of 1.3 percent-3.2 percent.

Nifty Realty, on the other hand, was the best performing sectoral index, up 1.7 percent at close led by Unitech and DLF.

Among individual stocks, Emami surged 15 percent

after the promoters of the personal products company divested 10 percent stake in the company for Rs 1,600 crore to reduce the debt. The sale was executed in the stock exchanges on Monday and was sold to SBI Mutual Fund, Premji Invest, Amundi, IDFC, L&T Mutual Fund, and others.

Divi’s Labs recovered 4 percent from the day's low after the company issued a disclosure to exchanges saying income tax department found no irregularities in its search operation at company’s premises.

Kaveri Seeds in its conference call on Monday, said it thought it was not material to inform exchanges about license suspension by Andhra Pradesh govt, and this led to a fall for the second straight day. The stock closed 12 percent lower.

In the derivatives space, the Nifty Put option of 10,500 added a little more than 2 lakh shares in the open interest with premium slipping 16 percent. The Nifty February Futures closed with a premium of 11 points against a premium of 21 points on Monday.

Stocks in Asia were mixed on Tuesday amid renewed geopolitical tensions, with China accusing the US of fuelling cyber-security fears. Investors also awaited developments on the US-China trade front.

The White House said on Monday that trade talks between the two economic powerhouses will continue in Washington on Tuesday, with higher level negotiations starting later in the week.

Mainland Chinese markets were mostly unchanged, with the Shanghai composite rising slightly to close at 2,755.65, while the Shenzhen component saw fractional losses to finish the day at 8,440.87.

The Shenzhen composite rose 0.18 percent to close at 1,443.60, meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 0.28 percent in its final hour. Japan's Nikkei 225 ended flat, while the Topix gained 0.28 percent.

Also, catch all the highlights from the stock markets today in our Market blog.