Indian equities ended lower on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy statement for 2018-19 decided to keep key interest rates unchanged.
The RBI said, ''On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation at its meeting today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to keep the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 6.5 per cent.''
At the close, the benchmark 30-share index, BSE Sensex lost 249.90 or 0.69% at 35,884.41 with 25 components posting drop. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty went down by 84.55 or 0.74% at 10,784.95 with 46 components registering drop.
Major losers in the 30-share index were Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (6.59%), Tata Steel (4.27%), Tata Motors (3.70%), Cipla (3.35%), Mahindra & Mahindra (3.33%), and Coal India (2.85%).
On the other hand, Hindustan Unilever (2.07%), Housing Development Finance Corporation (1.99%), H D F C Bank (0.59%), Wipro (0.40%), Reliance Industries (0.29%), and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (0.12%) were the biggest gainers in the Sensex.
Market breadth was negative with 739 advances against 1,570 declines.
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs. 1,363.74 million. It was followed by Yes Bank (Rs. 764.15 million), Tata Steel (Rs. 421.93 million) and Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (Rs. 345.94 million).
The volume chart was led by Reliance Communications with trades of over 18.58 million shares. It was followed by Dish TV India (5.75 million), Yes Bank (4.40 million) and Ashok Leyland (3.31 million).