Shares continued to trend lower on Tuesday in afternoon trade. However, they had pared their morning losses considerably.

At about 1.55 pm, the NSE Nifty was down 8.80 points or 0.09 per cent at 9,429.45. Similarly, the BSE Sensex was down 40.81 points or 0.13 per cent at 30,530.16.

Cipla and Sun Pharma were the big losers today. Sun Pharma fell after its US arm reported weak quarterly results. Investors booked profit in recent outperformers such as ITC Ltd .

“There is some profit-booking taking place in the market at the moment after the substantial rally we saw recently,” said K K Mittal, Vice President at Venus India Asset Finance.

“If earnings pick up further, the NSE index may move towards 10,000 level,” Mittal added.

The country's largest truck-and-bus maker, Tata Motors Ltd , is slated to post its quarterly results later in the day.

Pharma stocks were the biggest losers and the Nifty Pharma Index was on track to post its sixth consecutive session of loss.

Consumer staples snapped two sessions of gains, with the Nifty FMCG index dropping as much as one per cent.

Both ITC Ltd and Dabur India Ltd, were off their day's lows. ITC was down 0.5 per cent and Dabur India slipped 0.45 per cent.

Shares of state-run GAIL (India) Ltd fell as much as 6.3 per cent to their lowest in three months after the company posted a 69 per cent fall in fourth-quarter profit on Monday. They recovered in afternoon trade and were quoting at Rs 382.20, down Rs 8.95 (or 2.29 per cent)

Maruti, M&M, Tata Steel, Wipro and HUL were the top gainers on the SEnsex.