Samvat 2069: Volatile Sensex trades lower; HDFC pack dips

Indian shares remained lacklustre despite weakness in global peers. The fall in banking & financials and technology stocks offset gains in oil & gas exploration, metals, capital goods and telecom stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex went down 16.66 points to 18,653.68 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 7.5 points to 5,676.25.

Housing finance company HDFC and private sector lender HDFC Bank were down 0.6 percent each.

Country's largest software services exporters Infosys and TCS fell 0.5 percent. Cigarette major ITC slipped 0.3 percent and commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors was down 0.5 percent.

Among metals stocks, Tata Steel and Hindalco moved up 0.7 percent each.

Engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro and private oil & gas producer Reliance Industries went up 0.3 percent.

The broader markets outperformed quite nicely on mahurat with the BSE Midcap Index rising 0.9 percent and Smallcap climbing over 1 percent.

In the second line shares, United Breweries rallied 16 percent and L&T Finance Holdings up 15 percent.

Dhanlaxmi Bank, Anant Raj Industries, Kingfisher Airlines and DB Realty were up 3-5 percent.

France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE extended losses today on disappointing German sentiment survey, indicating European debt crisis is worsening.