Bourses snap 3-day rally, Sensex tumbles 504 points ahead of Reserve Bank policy decision

Mumbai: Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty halted their three-day rally to close with deep cuts on Thursday, in line with bearish global markets, as participants turned cautious ahead of the RBI policy announcement amid geopolitical uncertainties.

Intense selling in metal, IT and capital goods stocks also dampened market sentiment, traders said.

In a bearish session, the 30-share BSE Sensex further dropped 503.76 points, or 0.60 per cent, to settle at 83,313.93. During the day, it tanked 666.07 points, or 0.79 per cent, to 83,151.62.

A total of 2,447 stocks declined while 1,737 advanced and 158 remained unchanged on the BSE.

The 50-share NSE Nifty declined 133.20 points, or 0.52 per cent, to end at 25,642.80.

Market participants are now turning their attention to the upcoming RBI policy meeting, Nair added.

The decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be announced by RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Friday.

From the Sensex constituents, Eternal, Bharti Airtel, Bharat Electronics, ITC, Infosys, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and Asian Paints were among the major laggards. In contrast, Trent, Tata Steel, SBI and Bajaj Finance were the gainers.

Among sectoral indices, capital goods dropped 1.07 per cent, metal (1.05 per cent), consumer durables (0.88 per cent), BSE Focused IT (0.78 per cent), IT (0.76 per cent) and telecom (0.72 per cent). BSE PSU Bank and oil & gas were the gainers.