Indian equities indices fell for the fourth straight session on Wednesday after the RBI raised its key lending rate. To combat stubbornly rising inflation, the central bank lifted the repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 4.90 percent, following a surprise 40-bps boost earlier in May.
With the impact on Central bank key rate, the 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 215 points, or 0.39 percent, to close at 54,892, while the wider NSE Nifty declined 60 points, or 0.37 percent, to settle at 16,356. Mid- and small-cap stocks finished down, with the Nifty Midcap 100 down 0.48 percent and the small-cap index down 0.30 percent.
Seven of the NSE's 15 sector indicators finished in the red. Nifty FMCG, Nifty Consumer Durables, Nifty Oil & Gas, and Nifty Private Bank, respectively, underperformed the platform by up to more or less 1 percent.
The highest Nifty loser was Bharti Airtel, which fell 2.98 percent to 664.90. Among the laggards were ITC, Reliance Industries, UPL, and Asian Paints. Airtel, ITC, Reliance, Asian Paints, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, PowerGrid, and UltraTech Cement were among the worst-performing stocks on the 30-share BSE index.
On the other hand, Tata Steel, SBI, Dr Reddy's, Bajaj Finance, TCS, Titan, Maruti, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Tech, Wipro, M&M, and the HDFC were the only companies to end in the green.
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