Sensex, Nifty choppy; HUL gains 4%, Wipro down 3%

Indian equity benchmarks were completely lacklustre in trade today following mixed Asian cues. FMCG major HUL topped the buying list, rising nearly 4% after stronger than expected numbers in June quarter while third largest software services exporter Wipro fell over 3% as the company could not report stellar performance in the first quarter of FY13.

The BSE benchmark was up 32 points at 16,909.24 and the NSE benchmark gained 8 points at 5,126.20. The broader markets too were choppy in trade.

Siddharth Bhamre of Angel Broking believes that the global factors would decide the future course of the market. "We will be more on the mercy of global cues rather than internals of markets because internal market statistics are not working accordingly," he said.

Though the direction of market is not very clear at this point of time, his outlook is not very bearish. He expects to see some bounce back in the Nifty till the July series expires.

Cigarette major ITC, private sector lender ICICI Bank and software services exporter Infosys gained over 0.5%.

Top car maker Maruti Suzuki gained 1.5% as traders covered their short positions. The stock fell more than 11% since last Thursday due to stoppage of work at its Manesar plant.

Private steel maker Sterlite Industries rallied over 2%.

However, country's largest software services exporter TCS declined 0.55%. Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro was down 0.3% and state-owned power equipment manufacturer BHEL lost 1.2%.

Advancing shares outnumbered declining by 639 to 539 on the National Stock Exchange.

In the second line shares, Cholamandalam, Wockhardt, Prestige Estate, Tata Global Beverage and Welspun Corp gained 3-5% whereas Responsive Industries, Elantas Beck, Anant Raj Industries, HDIL and Jaypee Infra fell 3-6%.