Analysts say that the profit booking has pulled down the benchmark indices in the domestic stock exchanges in the day's trade today from their intraday high levels.

The Benchmark, Sensex index of the Bombay Stock (BSE) was trading 12 points higher at 17,330 while the broader Nifty index traded 2 points lower at 5,246. The Sensex was trading about 100 points below the day's high and Nifty was 30 points below the intraday high at the time of reporting this morning.

The BSE auto index was down 1.2 per cent, which was the most among the 14-sectoral indices of the BSE. The BSE Midcap Index was up 0.07 percent and the BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.35 percent.

On the other hand, 21 of the 50 stocks traded higher on the Nifty index. Bharti Airtel, which was trading 2.6 per cent higher, replaced HUL as the top Nifty gainer. The National Stock Exchange's Nifty was not able to hold on to gains and slipped into negative due to heavy losses in auto, power, capital goods and oil & gas sectors.