The Sensex and Nifty snapped their six-session rally to close marginally lower on Thursday as investors booked profit in banking, finance and energy counters ahead of the RBI's policy decision.
The Reserve Bank of India's rate-setting panel will announce its bi-monthly monetary policy on Friday amid expectations of at least a 35-basis-point hike in the interest rate to check high inflation.
A depreciating rupee further weighed on sentiment, traders said.
In choppy trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex ended 51.73 points or 0.09 per cent lower at 58,298.80. The broader NSE Nifty dipped 6.15 points or 0.04 per cent to 17,382.
NTPC was the biggest laggard in the Sensex pack, slipping 3.10 per cent, followed by SBI, Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, PowerGrid, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank and HDFC.
In contrast, Sun Pharma, Nestle India, Infosys, Dr Reddy's, Wipro, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Steel were among the major gainers, climbing up to 2.46 per cent. "Profit-taking finally came into play after 6-session gains, as rate-sensitive sectors like banking and realty faltered ahead of the RBI's policy meet outcome on Friday.
"Key indices pared most of their losses towards the end as strength in other Asian and European indices aided sentiment," said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd.
In the broader market, the BSE midcap gauge went higher by 0.29 per cent and the smallcap index advanced 0.25 per cent.
From the BSE sectoral indices, telecom declined by 1.14 per cent, followed by realty (1.11 per cent), utilities (0.70 per cent) and power (0.64 per cent).
Among the gainers were healthcare (1.93 per cent), IT (1.23 per cent), metal (1.01 per cent) and teck (1.05 per cent).
"Markets will be closely eyeing the outcome of MPC's monetary policy meet on Friday. Before that, the performance of the global indices amid the fresh developments on China-Taiwan tension would dictate the trend in early trades.