The Sensex and Nifty ended marginally higher due to short-covering by participants ahead of September month F&O expiry tomorrow.
Short-covering of positions — speculators buying stocks that have been sold short to steer clear of losses — in view of tomorrow’s September monthly derivatives contract expiry buoyed the sentiment.
The 30-share BSE index Sensex ended higher by 69.11 points or 0.24 per cent at 28,292.81 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 38.75 points or 0.45 per cent at 8,745.15.
Barring IT, all other BSE sectoral indices ended in the positive zone. Among them, metal index gained the most by 1.92 per cent, realty 1.42 per cent, auto 1.24 per cent and PSU 1.11 per cent, while IT index was down 0.26 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were Tata Steel (+3.25%), Bharti Airtel (+2.42%), Adani Ports (+2.27%), State Bank of India (+1.83%) and ONGC (+1.66%), while the major losers were Reliance (-1.87%), Coal India (-0.99%), HUL (-0.97%), Sun Pharma (-0.53%) and Cipla (-0.35%).
RBI policy review
Investors are anxiously awaiting the monetary policy review on October 4, the first to be held under RBI Governor Urjit Patel and the first to be decided by a six-member panel.
Global markets
A rise in Deutsche Bank shares helped push European stocks higher on Wednesday, easing concerns over Germany’s financial sector that had hit equities in Asia and drove investors into safe-haven government bonds and the dollar.
Most other Asian markets remained sluggish as well, on concerns over the European banking sector and as lower crude oil prices hurt investors' risk appetite.
The market does not have any cues, particularly on where to go about since all the major triggers are over, said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president of research at SMC Global Securities.
“Domestic markets are probably waiting for the monetary policy by the new governor and his stance on interest rates," said Jain.