Among the major losers in trade today were cement stocks like ACC, Ambuja Cements and Ultratech Cement. Pharma major Cipla dropped sharply after a downgrades by a couple of brokerages following results that failed to meet street expectations.

IT stocks saw buying following the better than expected performance from Cognizant. TCS surged more than 2 per cent, while Wipro and Infosys also gained.

Auto stocks saw some selling pressure after Mahindra and Mahindra reported results that were below market expectations. Auto stocks that fell were Tata motors, Mahindra and Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki.

Hindalco shares ended the day steady after the results reported by the company were satisfactory. Realty stocks saw some selling pressure after the sharp rally in the stock during the last few weeks. Realty stocks that dropped were DB Realty, Oberoi Realty, HDIL, Unitech and Parsvanth.

PSU banking stocks came in for more profit booking, following a poor set of numbers by Canara Bank. PSU banking stocks that lost ground in trade today were Canara Bank, Indian Bank, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and IDBI Bank.

Prominent Nifty gainers in trade today were TCS, Larsen and Toubro, NTPC, HDFC Bank, Wipro and Bharti Airtel.

Energy stocks that had rallied in the last few weeks also took a breather with BPCL, Cairn, India Oil and Reliance Power dropping in trade.

Meanwhile, markets in Europe were trading higher, while markets in Asia closed with gains. The German DAX, the French CAC and the UK's FTSE were all trading higher.

Indian markets are expected to take cues from global developments until the Budget, which should be the next trigger for the markets.

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