The Indian stock markets traded lower on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (RBI MPC) decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent for the 10th consecutive time.
The Nifty 50 at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) opened in red territory at 24,729.45, down over 12.25 points, and the BSE Sensex at 81,887.54, up about 100 points.
After the repo rate announcement, at 10:17 am, the Sensex was trading 233.53 points lower at 81,532.33, while the Nifty was trading 78.45 points down at 24,629.95.
In the opening trading session at NSE, the stocks of Bajaj Auto, Eicher Motor, Trent, ITC, and Hero Motocorp were the major gainers, while TCS, Wipro, LT, Tata Motors, and Ultra Cement constituted the major losers. On sectoral indices at NSE, Bank, IT, Media, Realty, midsmall healthcare opened in the red, leaving others in the green territory.
In the Nifty 50 list, 27 stocks opened with gains, while 23 stocks declined at the time of filing this report.
The markets have been climbing for the last five days as the buying from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) has started, coupled with the strong US markets.
Observing the markets on technical charts, Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities, said a key resistance area lies between 24800 and 24850 and higher around 24965. A support lies near 24360, a level that was formerly critical resistance.
“Looking at the last 20 years of data, the period from now till year-end has seen the nifty advance 75% of the time, with average and median returns of 1.7 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively,” Hinchalkar added.
On the global front, the Asian markets were mixed, following losses on Wall Street, while US markets ended lower, with the Dow Jones falling 248.33 points (-0.55 percent). OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed to extend oil supply cuts through March 2025. (ANI)
