Nifty, Sensex flat; MCX, Financial Tech most active

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade marginally lower since early trade due to profit booking in FMCG, oil & gas and auto stocks. Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank fell 0.85% whereas its rival State Bank of India extended yesterday's upmove, rising 1%.

Top software services exporters Infosys and TCS moved up 1% and 0.6%, respectively ahead of their earnings for the quarter ended June 2012. Majority of analysts expect Infosys to lower its full year revenue guidance while TCS will outperform its peers.

The BSE benchmark fell 41 points to 17,577.39 and the NSE benchmark declined 11.40 points to 5,333.95. However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks, gaining around 0.5%.

FMCG majors ITC and HUL were down 1% each. Top telecom operator Bharti Airtel slipped 1% too.

Oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC dropped 0.6-1%. Commercial vehicle manufacturer Tata Motors and top car maker Maruti plummeted 1% each whereas two-wheeler major Hero Motocorp was up 0.4%.

Engineering and construction major by sales Larsen & Toubro rose 0.3% while state-owned power equipment manufacturer BHEL fell 0.5%.

Advancing shares outnumbered declining by 792 to 501 on the National Stock Exchange.

Most active shares on exchanges were Infotech Enterprises (surged 4%), SBI, MCX India, Financial Technologies and ICICI Bank.

In the second line shares, MCX India gained 2.6% and Financial Tech rose 6% after MCX-SX has received the approval from SEBI to start equity trading platform.