SENSEX, NIFTY little changed ahead of RBI's monetary policy decision, rate sensitive shares edge higher

The Indian equity benchmarks were little changed on Wednesday, October 1, ahead of Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy decision due later in the day. The SENSEX was trading in a band of 250 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,662 and a low of 24,605.

As of 9:22 am, the SENSEX was up 80 points at 80,346 and NIFTY50 index advanced 25 points to 24,635.

Most of the Asian markets were trading lower and US stock futures slipped as the US government was staring at a shutdown as Republicans and Democrats failed to reach an agreement to avoid the government closure.

Japan's Nikkei fell 1.14%, Singapore's Straits Times fell 1.08% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.34%. On the other hand, South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.88%. Markets in China and Hing Kong were closed on account of a holiday.

Overnight, US stocks managed to close higher despite a choppy session as investors braced for a possible shutdown of the US Federal government which would delay key economic reports and muddy the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy outlook.

Back home, buying was visible across board as all the major sector gauges, barring the measure of IT stocks, compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by NIFTY Pharma index's 1% gain. Auto, media, realty PSU bank, bank and financial services shares were also witnessing a mild buying interest.

Broader markets were largely in line with their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index rose 0.3% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.13%.

Among the individual shares, Tata Investment Corporation rose as much as 5.38% to hit a fresh 52-week high of ₹10,963.35 on the BSE on top of yesterday's 20% move.

The stock has been witnessing buying interest after the company last week announced that it received shareholder's approval for the stock split or subdivision of shares.

Rate sensitive banking, auto, financial services and real estate shares were witnessing some buying interest on hopes that the RBI MPC will cut rates by 25 basis points.

Sun Pharma was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 2.33% to ₹1,631. Shriram Finance, Trent, Bajaj Auto, Tata Consumer Products, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors also rose between 1-1.9%.

On the flipside, Bajaj Finance, Eternal, Bajaj Finserv, Asian Paints, InterGlobe Aviation and Bharti Airtel were among the laggards in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,238 shares were advancing while 830 were declining on the BSE.