Falling for the ninth straight session–its longest losing streak in almost a decade–the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange closed 259 points, or 1.4 percent lower, at 18,211, today. The market fell on sustained selling by investors, on concerns that high interest rates will dent corporate earnings. The Sensex has now lost almost 1,400 points in the last nine trading sessions. The Nifty at the National Stock Exchange declined 77 points, or 1.4 percent, to 5,460. Stock markets in China, Hong Kong and Singapore ended mixed.