BEIJING, Dec. 24 -- Chinese stocks tumbled for the second straight session Thursday led by brokerages and the coal sector.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.65 percent to close at 3,612.49 points. The Shenzhen index lost 0.58 percent to finish at 12,932.37 points.

The Hushen 300 index, tracking heavyweight stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell 0.96 percent to close at 3,829.4 points.

The total turnover of the two bourses stood at 749.6 billion yuan (about 115.8 billion U.S. dollars), down from 996.7 billion yuan the previous trading day.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 581 to 378 in Shanghai and by 789 to 738 in Shenzhen. Altogether 3 shares on the two exchanges plunged by the daily limit of 10 percent.

The sub-index for brokerage firms, which performed well on the previous trading day, was the biggest loser Thursday.

CITIC Securities, China's largest brokerage firm, dropped 2.46 percent to 20.63 yuan per share. Dongcing Securities Co., Ltd. and Western Securities Co., Ltd. decreased 7.38 percent and 6.81 percent, respectively.

Coal firms also led the losses. Heilongjiang Heihua Co., Ltd. and Zhengzhou Coal Industry & Electric Power Co., Ltd. dipped by the daily limit of 10 percent.

Other major losers were firms in sectors such as real estate, aviation devices, roads and bridges.

The real estate subindex, covering 123 firms, was down 1.28 percent. Gemdale Corporation tumbled 8.98 percent to 15.11 yuan and P2P Financial Information Service Co., Ltd. was down 8.83 percent to 16.51 yuan per share.

The ChiNext Index, a NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, gained 0.43 percent to end at 2,795.78 points.