Sensex, Nifty Fall On RBI's Surprise Status Quo On Rates

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes fell on Thursday after the world's most aggressive central bank - Reserve Bank of India - surprised analysts and economists by pausing to cut repo rate at its December monetary policy review. The benchmarks extended declines paced by losses in rate sensitive banking, auto and financial services shares. The Sensex fell as much as much as 282 points from day's highest level and the Nifty 50 index touched an intraday low of 11,999.

The Sensex ended 71 points or 0.2 per cent lower at 40,780 and Nifty 50 index declined 25 points or 0.2 per cent to settle at 12,018.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept its key lending rate unchanged in a shock decision on Thursday and sharply revised its forecast for the economy to project the weakest growth in seven years. The RBI's monetary policy committee led by its Governor Shaktikanta Das voted to hold the repo rate at 5.15 per cent.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Metal index's over 2 per cent fall. Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Bank, Nifty Auto, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Private Bank indexes also fell between 0.7-1.8 per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty Media index was top gainer, up 2.95 per cent.

JSW Steel was top loser in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock fell 3.5 per cent to close at Rs 251. Coal India, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Grasim Industries, Tata Motors and Hero MotoCorp were also among the losers.

On the flipside, Zee Entertainment was top gainer, up 6.2 per cent to close at Rs 299. TCS, ITC, Larsen & Toubro, Britannia Industries, Infosys and Wipro were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,349 shares ended lower while 1,131 closed highe ron the BSE.