Nifty erases gains, tests 5400; banks, auto, oil & gas down

Indian shares reversed gains due to downward journey in oil & gas, auto and banks stocks. European markets too were off day's high - France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were flat as compared to 0.7% gains in initial trade.

Oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC were real culprits behind losing of gains in afternoon trade; both tanked 2% each. Housing finance company HDFC and engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro lost over 1%.

The BSE benchmark fell 47 points to 17,800.13 and the NSE benchmark declined 16 points to 5,397.10.

Country's largest lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank were marginally lower while their rival HDFC Bank was flat.

Among auto stocks, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bajaj Auto were down 1-1.6% while Maruti and Hero Motocorp were marginally under pressure.

Software services exporters managed to hold early gains due to consistent buying interest; TCS was up 1.6% and Infosys gained 1.2%. Wipro remained top gainer with 3% gains.

FMCG majors ITC and Hindustan Unilever were up 1% and 0.25%, respectively. Shares of Sun Pharma, Cipla, Tata Power, Tata Steel and Jindal Steel moved up 0.5-1%.

The broader markets too reversed gains as decliners outnumbered advancers by 830 to 597 on the National Stock Exchange.

In the second line shares, S Kumars Nationwide and Opto Circuits tanked 12% each.

Reliance Capital, Shree Renuka Sugars, GMR Infra and Alok Industries were down 1-4%.