The Sensex ended the day lower by 68 points, while the Nifty lost 23 points in trade. Today's fall in the Nifty was led by stocks where investors have been taking shelter in the last few weeks including heavyweights like HUL, ITC and HDFC.

Stocks from the beaten down metals pack staged a remarkable recovery. Among the gainers from the space were Jindal Steel, Sesa Goa, Tata Steel and Sterlite Industries.

PSU banking stocks which were hammered out of shape in the last few trading sessions saw short covering and buying interest at lower levels.

Among the gainers from the space were Union Bank, Oriental Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of India and Canara Bank.

Heavyweights, Reliance Industries and ONGC lent support to the markets today, along with Bharti and Coal India. Lupin Laboratories which reported a good set of numbers dropped almost 6 per cent following its results.

The software pack was weak in trade with notable losers from the space being TCS and Infosys. These stocks had hit 52-week lows on sustained buying.

Wockhardt was once again locked at the lower end of the circuit filter with only sellers in the counter. Financial Technologies, which had a stake in NSEL rallied after NSEL disclosed that its stock positions are worth over Rs 6,000 crore versus outstanding of nearly Rs 5550 crore.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia ended the day lower on fresh worries that the US Federal Reserve would announce tapering of QE3 earlier then expected on strong data in the US.

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