Sharp gains in Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank could not help the Nifty which shed 35 points at close at 5658 points - the lowest level in 2013.

The notable gainers from the Nifty were HDFC, Jindal Steel, Ultratech Cement, Mahindra and Mahindra and Mahindra, Axis Bank and Gas Authority of India.

Investors continued to take shelter in the defensives, particularly the IT sector. Shares in software companies were among the gainers in trade today with Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro Ltd, Infosys Technologies and HCL Technologies amongst the gainers.

Tata Motors sank to its lowest level since December on worries that fuel efficiency guidelines issued by China could impact the company's Jaguar Land Rover models. The stock lost 4.5 per cent in trade today.

The steep fall in Reliance Infra witnessed on Wednesday continued with the stock dropping another 3.8 per cent in trade.

Other notable losers were Punjab National Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Bank of Baroda, Tata Power, Bajaj Auto, JP Associates and BPCL.

This week's favourite whipping boys, realty stocks continued to grind lower on heavy dumping in the stocks. Unitech lost 4.4 per cent, HDIL, DLF, Oberoi Realty and Parsvnath all ending the day with steep cuts.

PSU banking stocks came in for heavy selling pressure with Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Indian Overseas Bank and Union Bank of India dropping.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia ended the day mixed with the Hong Kong's Hang Sang and the Korean Kospi losing ground, while the Japanese Nikkei and the Chinese Shanghai Composite ended the day with sharp gains.

In Europe markets were trading sharply lower on concerns that the crisis in Cyprus may spread to other regions around Europe. The German DAX, the French CAC and the UK's FTSE were all down in trade.

GoodReturns.in