Pharma stocks were pounded in trade today. Reports of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration imposing an "import alert" on a plant operated by generic drugmaker Wockhardt Ltd, saw the stock plummeting for a second day in a row. Ranbaxy Laboratories also continued to trade in the red after allegations by Daiichi Sankyo on the ex-promoters of the company accusing them of hiding information on US probe into drug adulteration.

This saw a sell-off in other pharma stocks with Sun Pharma, Glenmark and Cipla down sharply.

Other Nifty losers in trade were Bharat Heavy and Maruti Suzuki. Stocks that gained from the Nifty were Tata Power, Lupin, NTPC and BPCL. Tata Steel jumped more then 4 per cent, after investors gave a thumbs-up to the company's Q4 2013 numbers.

PSU banking stocks saw some recovery in trade today, except State Bank of India which continued to fall after reporting a poor set of numbers. Other PSU banking stocks that dropped were Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.

Realty stocks ended the day with stellar gains, as Anant Raj, DB Realty and Indiabulls gained.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia ended flat to negative with the Japanese Nikkei ending in the green, while the Korean Kospi and the Indonesian indice also ended the day with gains.

GoodReturns.in