Shares decline further

The market extended losses and hit fresh intraday low in early afternoon trade. At 12:21 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 71.61 points or 0.20% at 35,475.72. The Nifty 50 index was down 19.50 points or 0.18% at 10,752.55.

The indices opened higher and hit fresh intraday high in early trade. Indices reversed trend in morning trade and hit fresh intraday low in early afternoon trade. The Sensex rose 131.36 points, or 0.37% at the day's high of 35,678.69 in early trade. The index fell 71.89 points, or 0.20% at the day's low of 35,475.44 in early afternoon trade. The Nifty rose 37.55 points, or 0.35% at the day's high of 10,809.60 in early trade. The index fell 23.50 points, or 0.22% at the day's low of 10,748.55 in early afternoon trade.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.26%. The BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.48%. Both these indices underperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was weak. On BSE, 783 shares rose and 1527 shares fell. A total of 120 shares were unchanged.

Cement shares declined. UltraTech Cement (down 1.3%), ACC (down 0.95%) and Ambuja Cements (down 0.63%), edged lower.

Grasim Industries was down 1.19%. Grasim has exposure to cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.

Telecom shares declined. Reliance Communications (down 1.31%), Idea Cellular (down 0.89%), MTNL (down 0.89%), Bharti Airtel (down 0.6%) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (down 0.41%), edged lower.

Telecom tower infrastructure provider Bharti Infratel was down 2.06%.

On the macro front, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday, 20 June 2018, released the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held between 4-6 June 2018. All six members of the MPC maintained their neutral policy stance and also voted in favour of a repo rate increase of 25 basis points to 6.25%, revealed the minutes of the meeting.

According to the minutes, RBI governor Urjit Patel said inflation risks have increased since the April policy. Patel, therefore, voted for an increase in the policy repo rate by 25 basis points. In view of prevailing uncertainties, it is apposite to maintain the neutral stance so as to respond to the evolving situation in a flexible manner, he added.

Among the internal members, deputy governor Viral Acharya said that there were considerable uncertainties around oil and food prices as well as the playing out of trade wars and global financial market outcomes, and voted for continuing with the neutral stance. The third RBI member Michael Patra pushed for front-ending rate hikes on the grounds that there is a closing sliver of opportunity to do so.

Overseas, most Asian stocks declined, driven by uncertainty surrounding trade relations between the world's two largest economies. US stock closed mostly higher Wednesday, though the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its seventh consecutive daily decline.

The US current-account deficit increased to $124.1 billion (preliminary) in the first quarter of 2018 from $116.1 billion (revised) in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The deficit was 2.5% of current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter, up from 2.4% in the fourth quarter.

Existing-home sales ran at a seasonally-adjusted annual 5.43 million rate in May, down 0.4% from April, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.

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