Nifty ends below 10,650, down 67.70 pts ahead of RBI policy

The NSE benchmark Nifty fell by another 67.70 points to end at 10,628.50, dragged by heavy losses in realty, infra, banking and financal service shares amid caution ahead of the RBI's three-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meet.

The Reserve Bank advanced the meeting of the MPC by a day to June 4 and also increased the duration to three days due to "certain administrative exigencies".

"Owing to certain administrative exigencies, the second bi-monthly policy meeting for 2018-19 will now be held on June 4-6, 2018 instead of on June 5-6," it had said.

In the overseas markets, European stocks were trading higher as optimism for the world's largest economy helped investors put concerns over protectionism to one side.

Asian stocks closed higher, tracking gains seen on Wall Street last Friday.

Back home, the 50-share NSE Nifty ended at 10,628.50, down 67.70 points or 0.63 per cent, its lowest closing level since May 30, 2018. The index hit a high of 10,770.30 and a low of 10,618.35 during the day.

It saw an intra-day movement of about 151.95 points.

On the sectoral front, realty fell by 3.33 per cent followed by infra 1.69 per cent, bank 1.63 per cent, finance service 1.60 per cent, PSU bank 1.59 per cent, private bank 1.31 per cent, FMCG 0.76 per cent, auto 0.48 per cent, pharma 0.09 per cent and media 0.05 per cent.

On the other hand, IT, metal and energy rose by 0.27 per cent, 0.16 per cent and 0.10 per cent, respectively.

Major index gainers were Dr Reddy, Infosys, Lupin, Hindalco, M&M, Reliance, IOC, Ultratech Cement and Yes Bank.

Losers included, Indiabulls Housing Finance, HDFC bank, Bharti Airtel, Adani Ports, Bajaj Finserv, InfraTel, GAIL and HUL.

The market breadth remained negative. A total of 292 scrips advanced, 1,530 declined and 66 remained unchanged. Total securities that have hit their price band were 312.

Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 28,487.49 crore from Rs 20,523.14 crore as on last Friday.

A total of 12,482.71 lakh shares changed hands in 1,04,93,947 trades. The market capitalisation of the listed firms on the NSE stood at Rs 1,44,27,471.31 crore.