Among the shares that gained today were Hindustan Unilever, which rose more than 7%, following spectacular results posted by the company. Shares of Maruti recovered lost ground after Monday's hammering and closed higher by more than two per cent on hopes that the lock out at the Manesar plant would be resolved shortly. Among the other gainers were Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, Ranbaxy and GAIL

Losers amongst the Sensex stocks were Wipro, Sun Pharma and SAIL. In fact, Wipro's muted revenue guidance disappointed the streets, which saw large scale hammering in the stock.

Meanwhile, in Asia stocks closed mixed with Korea's Kospi and Singapore's Straits Times closing higher, while Hong Kong's Hang Sang and the Japanese Nikkei closed lower.

Markets are likely to take direction from reforms and are eagerly awaiting for Manmohan Singh to initiate the process.

GoodReturns.in