Mumbai, July 20 -- The key equity benchmarks ended sharply lower on Monday, dragged by heavy selling in banking and financial stocks. The decline was mainly led by weakness in private bank shares, profit booking after recent gains, rising crude oil prices, and cautious investor sentiment amid weak global cues.

The Nifty settled below the 24,350 mark. PSU Bank, Pharma and media shared advanced while private bank, financial services and IT shares declined.

As per provisional closing data, the S&P BSE Sensex tanked 442.93 points or 0.57% to 77,708.52. The Nifty 50 index fell 95.80 points or 0.39% to 24,238.50.

The broader market outperformed the frontline indices. The BSE 150 MidCap Index added 0.47% and the BSE 250 SmallCap Index rose 0...