NIFTY50, SENSEX close lower; Cipla, Tata Motors and Trent among top gainers

Indian markets have maintained their gains since morning, but selling pressure in the last leg of trade forced markets to end flat on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India kept the repo rate unchanged. Investors are now focusing on upcoming inflation data and corporate earnings. As for broader indices, the BSE mid-cap index and the small-cap index ended with gains of over 1%.

Sentiments were positive as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) changed the policy stance to 'Neutral' from 'Withdrawal of Accommodation'. It also kept its key repo rate unchanged at 6.5 % for a tenth straight policy. However, in the final hour of the trade, markets entered into red territory and ended just below neutral lines ahead of corporate earnings.

The BSE Sensex ended at 81,467.10, down by 167.71 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 81,342.89 and 82,319.21. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional).

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 1.06%, while the Small cap index was up by 1.21%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.21%, Healthcare up by 1.68%, Power up by 1.18%, Consumer discretionary up by 1.09% and Industrials was up by 0.96%, while FMCG down by 1.31%, Energy down by 0.78%, Oil & Gas down by 0.64% and Metal was down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

European markets were trading higher; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 44.8 points or 0.54% to 8,235.41, France’s CAC rose 16.84 points or 0.22% to 7,538.16 and Germany’s DAX was up by 31.14 points or 0.16% to 19,097.61.