Indian stock indices whiled away time on Monday with the Nifty and the Sensex in the red throughout. Both the indices went thrice into the green in intra-day trade.

The Nifty closed at 5,039, down 11 points, while the Sensex closed at 16,822, down 25 points.

“Trading was lacklustre and all the indices were either marginally in the green or in the red,” said a dealer from an Indian brokerage.

On the global front, France, Germany and the ECB are meeting this week to discuss on how to arrive at a common fiscal policy for the EU in order to keep the EU afloat.

Meanwhile, the US reported an unemployment rate of 8.6 per cent in November compared with the October rate of nine per cent

JP Associates, Axis Bank, NTPC, BHEL and PNB were the top five Nifty gainers while HCL Tech, SAIL, RPower, Tata Steel and Sterlite were the top losers.