Sensex ends the session on a negative note

Indian equity benchmarks gave up most of their losses in the last leg of trade to come off their intraday low points but failed to erase all losses and ended with a minor cut, tracking weak overseas trend. Key indices made a gap-down opening, as traders remained pessimistic with a private report stating that a spike in India's retail inflation in December has raised the chances that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will put rate cuts on hold for some time, despite the economic growth languishing at more than six-year lows.

As per the report, the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may even change its stance from accommodative to neutral at its February meeting. Indices hit fresh intraday low in afternoon trade as the bilateral trade between India and China declined by about $3 billion last year while, India's trade deficit continues to be high amounting to $56.77 billion as both the countries experienced an economic slowdown.

However, key indices pared most of their losses at the final hour of trade, as traders found some solace with report that the new FICCI President Sangita Reddy has urged the government not to worry too much about the fiscal deficit and try to pump the economy by increasing investments to arrest a slowdown and accelerate growth. Traders also took a note of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) report stating that sound economic policies and strong institutions have transformed Asia and the Pacific over the past five decades into a center of global dynamism.

On the global front, Asian markets ended mostly lower on Wednesday, while European markets were trading mostly in red, ahead of the signing of an initial trade deal between Washington and Beijing, as comments from the US Treasury Secretary of China tariffs somewhat dimmed optimism. Back home, reality stocks were in focus with a joint report by Knight Frank-FICCI-Naredco stating that the real estate sentiments in the country revived in December quarter and turned optimistic after two quarters on the back of several measures taken by the government and the RBI to boost demand.

BSE Sensex ended at 41,872.73, down by 79.90 points or 0.19 per cent after trading in a range of 41,648.11 and 41,969.86. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.  The broader indices ended in green while, the BSE Mid-cap index rose 0.69 per cent, while Small-cap index was up by 1.07 per cent.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables, up by 1.39 per cent, Realty up by 1.35 per cent, Auto up by 1.14 per cent, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services up by 1.06 per cent and Utilities up by 0.92 per cent, while the top losing indices on BSE were Bankex down by 0.67 per cent, Telecom down by 0.25 per cent, Energy down by 0.22 per cent, TECK down by 0.12 per cent and IT down by 0.06 per cent.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.58 per cent, Titan Co up by 1.31 per cent, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.27 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.03 per cent and Asian Paints up by 1.14 per cent. On the flip side, IndusInd Bank down by 5.44 per cent, SBI down by 1.13 per cent, Infosys down by 1.21 per cent, Power Grid down by 0.61 per cent and Tech Mahindra down by 0.53 per cent, were the top losers.