Domestic equity benchmarks ended modestly higher on Thursday, with the Nifty settling at a fresh record, as investors largely remained in a wait-and-watch mode ahead of RBI’s policy decision amid mixed global cues.
After scaling an all-time intra-day peak of 44,953.01, the 30-share BSE Sensex pared some gains to end 14.61 points or 0.03 per cent higher at 44,632.65.
Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty touched a fresh intra-day high of 13,216.60, before settling 20.15 points or 0.15 per cent up at 13,133.90 -- its lifetime closing high.
Maruti was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying 7.45 per cent, followed by ONGC, Asian Paints, NTPC, SBI, Bajaj Finserv and Tata Steel.
HDFC Bank was the top laggard, skidding 2.13 per cent, after the RBI temporarily barred it from launching digital banking initiatives and issuing new credit cards after taking a serious view of service outages at the country’s largest private sector lender over the last two years. TCS, Bajaj Auto, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, M&M and HDFC were among the losers, shedding up to 1.48 per cent.