Market rests: Sensex loses 113 pts after RBI keeps repo rate unchanged at 6%; OMCs rally, HDFC Bank bleeds

Indian stock markets took a rest from the three-day long sell-off and ended lower on Wednesday with the S&P BSE Sensex losing 113 points to settle at 34,082.71 after the Reserve Bank of India kept the repo rates unchanged at 6%. Shares of OMCs (oil marketing companies) such as HPCL, BPCL and IOC rallied while the stock of India’s largest private sector bank HDFC Bank bled. The benchmark Sensex lost 113.23 points or 0.33% to finish at 34,082.71 and the broader Nifty shed 21.55 points or 0.21% to conclude at 10,476.7. Domestic markets saw a steep rise in the early morning trades but kept on declining after jumping in the early session. During the day, BSE Sensex jumped as much as 470.39 points to hit the day’s high of 34,666.33 and made a low of 34,008.42 while NSE Nifty added 115.75 points to mark the day’s high at 10,614.

Major movers

Shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Aurobindo Pharma, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, ONGC, Coal India, GAIL, NTPC, IOC, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Eicher Motors, Cipla, Asian Paints, Tata Motors, ITC, Hero MotoCorp, Luoin and ICICI Bank emerged as the top gainers among Nifty 50 index rising 0.4-4.9% while Ambuja Cement, Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Bharti Infratel, HCL Tech, L&T, HDFC Bank, Bosch, TCS, Maruti Suzuki, IndusInd Bank, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank and Tata Steel lost 0.7-3.3%. The heavyweight shares of companies such as HDFC Bank, L&T, TCS, HUL, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Yes Bank and Maruti Suzuki contributed the most to the Sensex losses. Collectively these eight stocks wiped off 150 points while a little uptick in ONGC, ICICI Bank, Coal India and ITC helped to trim the losses adding 41 points.

RBI Monetary Policy Committee February 2018

The Monetary Policy Committee headed by RBI Governor Urijit Patel announced its repo rate decision on Wednesday, 7 February 2018. The Reserve Bank of India in its sixth and last bi-monthly policy of the financial year 2017-2018 kept the repo rate unchanged at 6% under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) and the reverse repo rate also remained at 5.75%, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 6.25%. The five members of RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee including Dr Chetan Ghate, Dr Pami Dua, Dr Ravindra H. Dholakia, Dr Viral V. Acharya and Dr Urjit R. Patel voted in favour of the monetary policy decision while Dr Michael Debabrata Patra voted for an increase in the policy rate of 25 basis points

Market at glance

A healthy recovery was observed in the all broader market and sectoral indices in morning trades which followed a mixed closing at the end of the day. Among the broader market indices of NSE, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500, Nifty Mid100 Free Nifty, Midcap 50 and Nifty Sml100 ended in green advancing 0.1-2.3% with small-cap index shining the most while Nifty 100 and Nifty 200 closed in the red. On the other hand, five out of the 11 sectoral indices of NSE settled down with Nifty Bank and Nifty IT losing up to 0.9% whereas Nifty Realty, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Media shone the most.

US stock markets on Tuesday

Meanwhile, US stocks posted sharp gains in another wild trading session on Tuesday, as indexes rebounded from the biggest one-day drops for the S&P 500 and the Dow in more than six years that stalled the market’s record run, Reuters said in a report. Stocks swung from negative to positive after indexes started the session 2% lower, underscoring a return of volatility to a market that until recently was marked by an absence of major shifts, Reuters added. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 567.02 points, or 2.33 percent, to 24,912.77, the S&P 500 gained 46.2 points, or 1.74 percent, to 2,695.14 and the Nasdaq Composite added 148.36 points, or 2.13 percent, to 7,115.88.