A weak trend across Europe which aggravated towards the latter part of trade pulled the Indian indices along with it. The Sensex ended the day lower by 162 points, while the Nifty shed 57 points. Among the top index gainers in trade today were Infosys, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and ONGC.

Stocks that lost ground were IDFC, Tata Motors, PNB and Cipla.

Telecom stocks were in the limelight today with Bharti among the top gainers in the Nifty stocks, while Idea too surged following a poor response to 2G auction, which should benefit the existing players.

Among non-index stocks REI Infra gained 6%, after the company got SEBI registration for mutual fund business.

Tribhoovandas Bhimji Zaveri saw frantic buying and the company's shares were locked at the upper end of the circuit filter initially, however, a drop in the markets saw the share coming out of the circuit filter.

Zylog Systems was locked at the lower end of the circuit filter, after the company reported poor numbers.

Banking shares took a severe hit with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India and IDBI Bank losing heavy ground. High beta names like Hindalco and real estate were the worst hit.

Markets are expected to remain choppy and trend lower until the fiscal cliff problems in the US are not resolved.

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