Bharti Airtel, Power Grid and Siemens dropped sharply pulling the Nifty lower by 36 points, while the Sensex shed 110 points.

Shares of Wipro dropped by more than 2.5 per cent following a decision that the company would be excluded from the Nifty and replaced by NMDC. Siemens too saw a sharp cut after a decision was taken to drop the company from the Nifty. Siemens fell almost 4 per cent in trade today.

NMDC and IndusInd gained after their inclusion into the Nifty. Sensex gainers in trade today were Hindustan Unilever, Gail, HDFC Bank, TCS and Coal India.

On the other hand index stocks that lost ground were ICICI Bank, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Tata Motors.

State Bank of India was a major Nifty loser after the company's results disappointed the markets. Heavyweight, Reliance Industries dropped by more than 2 per cent.

Maruti Suzuki also fell in trade trade after the company was excluded from the MSCI index.

PSU banking stocks were badly hit after poor results from State Bank of India dragged the stocks from the sector lower.

Among the PSU banking stocks that fell in trade today were Syndicate Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank, Canara Bank and IDBI Bank.

Realty stocks also dropped sharply in trade today with Anant Raj shedding more than 4 per cent, while Godrej Properties, Sobha Developers and HDIL were the other losers. Unitech, however saw smart gains following a decent set of numbers posted by the company.

Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets closed with gains, including the Hong Kong's Hang Sang, the Korean Kospi and the Chinese Shanghai Composite. Indian markets are now likely to take cues from the budget, which is slated to be delivered two weeks from now.

GoodReturns