The Nifty ended the day lower by 20 points, while the Sensex shed 51 points. Selling pressure from domestic institutions to subscribe to the government's divestment programme pushed the benchmark indices lower.

Among the top losers from the Nifty were Reliance Infra, Sesa Goa, Bharti Airtel, Bank of Baroda, Cipla, Ambuja Cements, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Gail, BPCL and DLF.

PSU banking stocks which had come in for severe selling pressure following poor results by Bank of Baroda, saw renewed selling pressure with Union Bank, IDBI Bank, Syndicate Bank and Punjab National Bank dropping.

Realty stocks came in for some selling pressure with Indiabulls, Parsvnath, Oberoi , Anant Raj and Oberoi Realty all dropping in trade today.

NTPC, whose OFS which opened today dropped lower with the stock falling and aligning to the OFS price.

Cipla's numbers disappointed the markets and the stock dropped after a downgrade by foreign broking firms.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia closed lower with the Japanese Nikkei, Chinese Shanghai Composite, the Hong Kong's Hang Sang and Singapore's Strait Times all closing lower in trade.

GoodReturns.in