Sensex drops 150 pts; ITC, Infosys, Reliance, ICICI weigh

Indian equity benchmarks remained under pressure with the Nifty trading below the 5650 level, weighed down by oil & gas exploration, technology, auto, metals and banking & financials stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 156 points to 18,462.92 and the 50-share NSE Nifty lost 46.6 points to 5,620.35. Country's largest lender State Bank of India and private sector lender were down 0.5 percent each while their rival ICICI Bank fell 1 percent. Software services exporters Infosys and TCS tumbled 2.27 percent adn 1.65 percent, respectively.