The Sensex and Nifty ended higher on Wednesday as RBI's policy stance of keeping the repo rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent was largely in line with market expectations.

The Reserve Bank of India, in its second bi-monthly monetary policy statement released today, has kept the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 6.25 per cent.

Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the LAF remains at 6.0 per cent, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 6.50 per cent.

The decision of the MPC is consistent with a neutral stance of monetary policy in consonance with the objective of achieving the medium-term target for consumer price index (CPI) inflation of 4 per cent within a band of +/- 2 per cent, while supporting growth.

The 30-share BSE index Sensex ended higher by 80.72 points or 0.26 per cent at 31,271.28 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty closed up 26.75 points or 0.28 per cent at 9,663.90.

Among BSE sectoral indices, healthcare index was the star-performer and was up 1.08 per cent, followed by metal 0.97 per cent, banking 0.73 per cent and auto 0.7 per cent. On the other hand, IT index fell 1.97 per cent and TECk 1.52 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Reliance (+1.96%), ICICI Bank (+1.91%), M&M (+1.49%), Sun Pharma (+1.31%) and HUL (+1.27%), while the major losers were TCS (-2.97%), Wipro (-2.1%), Infosys (-1.83%), Tata Motors (-0.64%) and Adani Ports (-0.59%).

Global markets

The smoothly executed rescue of Spain's struggling Banco Popular prodded European banking stocks higher on Wednesday in financial markets dominated by caution ahead of a trio of major events on Thursday.

European blue chip shares had risen by 0.1-0.2 per cent by 0850 GMT and Madrid's IBEX recovered from early losses to trade flat on the day. European banking shares rose 1.2 per cent.

Oil prices, however, were again almost 1 per cent lower and the flood of money into the perceived security of Japan's yen this week continued.

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