Sensex, Nifty Retreat From Record Highs: 10 Points

After hitting record highs in early trade on Wednesday, the domestic stock markets turned negative ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s third-bi-monthly monetary policy for fiscal 2019. At 11:52 am, the S&P BSE Sensex traded at 37,556.60, with a loss of 49.98 points or 0.13 per cent while Nifty50 was at 11,345.95 level, down 10.55 points or 0.09 per cent. The 30-share Sensex surged past 37,700 for the first time ever to hit an intra-day high of 37,711.87. The broader Nifty50 hit a lifetime high of 11,390.55.

Top laggards in the Sensex pack in early trade were NTPC (-0.10 per cent), Infosys (-0.37 per cent), Wipro (-0.43 per cent), HDFC Bank (-0.89 per cent), HDFC (-0.94 per cent) and Tata Motors (-3.73 per cent).

The main losers in the 50-share Nifty index in the morning session were Tata Motors (-3.90 per cent), Eicher Motors (-1.28 per cent), IndiaBulls Housing Finance (-0.91 per cent), Infosys (-0.81 per cent) and NTPC (-0.81 per cent).
Major gainers in the 30-share Sensex pack were Vedanta (+2.72 per cent), Axis Bank (+0.99 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (+0.82 per cent), SBI (+0.80 per cent), YES Bank (+0.79 per cent) and Tata Steel (+0.74 per cent).
IOC (+2.01 per cent), Bajaj Auto (+1.59 per cent), Hindustan Petroleum (+1.58 per cent), GAIL (+1.43 per cent) and Vedanta (+1.42 per cent) were leading the pack of Nifty gainers.
HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Infosys contributed to the Sensex’s losses.
In the forex market, the rupee depreciated by 5 paise to 68.59 against the US dollar in early trade today.
In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index gained 0.7 per cent, stated a report by news agency Reuters.
Reserve Bank of India is likely to raise interest rates later in the day while retaining a neutral policy stance as it aims to strike a balance between rising inflationary pressures and still recovering growth.
Thirty-seven of 63 economists in a Reuters poll last week said the RBI will raise rates today, while 22 said the next hike would come later this year, or early in 2019.
On Tuesday, the Sensex marked a higher closingfor the eighth consecutive session at 37,606.58. The Nifty also registered a fresh record closing high of 11,356.50