Mumbai, Nov 26 (TIWN) Sensex and Nifty on Tuesday ended lower after touching record highs earlier in the day. Barring banks financial sector stocks all the sectoral indices ended in the red.

The Sensex ended 68 points or 0.17 per cent lower at 40,821 and the Nifty 50 index fell 36 points or 0.3 per cent to close at 12,038.  "Nifty finally managed to touch new high today on the back of strong global cues, Foreign institutional investor (FII) buying and improvement in market sentiments after the slew of government reforms," said Siddhartha Khemka, head of retail research at brokerage Motilal Oswal Financial Services. "While the initiatives taken by the government and the RBI will take time to work on the ground and reflect in numbers, the market is focusing on long-term reforms."  Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Media index's 3.6 per cent fall.  Mid- and small-cap shares underperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes dropped 0.8 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.  Zee Entertainment was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock slumped as much as 9.2 per cent to Rs. 312 after its Chairman Subhash Chandra resigned from the company.  Bharti Infratel, Grasim industries, Bharti Airtel, JSW Steel, Bharat Petroleum, Wipro, Coal India and Mahindra & Mahindra were also among the laggards.  On the flipside, ICICI Bank, GAIL India, Dr Reddy's Labs, IndusInd bank, Tata Steel, Yes Bank, Nestle India and Britannia Industries were among the gainers.