Larsen & Toubro was amongst the prominent losers after Citigroup and Barclays downgraded the engineering conglomerate on concerns over order cancellations and weak investment cycle.

Metal stocks were the other losers in trade with most of the high beta names like Hindalco, Tata Steel, Sesa Goa and Sterlite Industries falling on profit taking.

Along with a drop in the metals pack was the capitals good space including names like Thermax, Suzlon and Punj Lloyd. Software stocks like Infosys and TCS also lost ground. Infosys is slated to declare its Q3 2013 results on Friday.

Pharma stocks were in the limelight in an otherwise lacklustre trading session with Glenmark Pharma rallying 3 per cent, while Sun Pharma, Piramal Enter and Dr Reddy's were the other prominent gainers.

Among non index stocks Hanung Toys gained after the company said it would issue preference shares to the promoter group.

Among the Nifty gainers today was index heavyweight ITC, HDFC and HDFC Bank. Shares of financial institution IFCI gained after a board recast.

Realty shares ended the day mixed with Anand Raj, Oberoi Realty and Godrej Properties dropping, while Unitech, DLF and India Bulls gained.

Meanwhile, markets in Europe were trading mixed with the German DAX dropping, while the French CAC and the UK's FTSE were trading higher. Asian indices closed in the red on profit taking.

Indian markets are likely to take cues from Europe and would now await for the RBI meet to be held later this month and the Union Budget slated for February.

GoodReturns.in