New Delhi, Feb. 27 -- The key benchmark indices ended the final trading session of February with sharp losses, dragged down by heavyweights, even as the sell-off in tech stocks paused. The weak handover from Wall Street, coupled with rising crude oil prices amid a lack of clarity over US-Iran talks, has also weighed on sentiment.

Consequently, the Nifty 50 dropped 1.3% to the 25,166 level, and the Sensex tanked 1.14% to 81,307. The broader markets, too, faced heavy losses, with both the Nifty Midcap 100 index and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index falling over 1.3%.

The Nifty 50 heavyweights such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, and SBI fell between 0.64% and 1.5%.

In terms of sector-wise, the Nifty Realty was th...