Indian shares opened flat on Tuesday tracking mixed Asian equities as investor's waited for Bank of Japan monetary policy outcome later today.
The BOJ, under pressure from new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is expected to increase monetary stimulus to lift the Japanese economy out of its third recession in five years.
The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex opened absolutely flat at 20,102.43 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty fell 2.15 points to open at 6,080.15.
In the results calendar, HUL will declare its third quarter performance later today while JSW Energy, Reliance Communications, Sun TV Network on Jan 23rd.
Globally, Asian shares also traded on a mixed note.Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3% to 23,661, Taiwan's Weighted index gained 0.1% to 7,732, Singapore's Straits Times fell 0.13% to 3,217 while China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.1% to 2,326 and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.4% to 10,705.
Back home, power, oil & gas, capital goods, health care, metals indexes gained while consumer durables, tech, IT indexes dropped on BSE.
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Among key Sensex stocks, NTPC gained 1%, ITC rose 0.77%, Tata Power was up 0.5%, Maruti Suzuki gained 0.4%, Wipro rose 0.3% on BSE.
Among losers, Hero MotoCorp fell over 1%, Bahrti Airtel fell 0.5%, SBI and HDFC Bank dropped 0.4% and 0.2%, TCS and Infosys dropped 0.1% and 0.3% while HUL shed 0.3% on BSE.
The broader markets traded positive with mid-caps and small-caps up by 0.1% on BSE.
The market breadth was firm. Out of 607 stocks traded, 308 stocks advanced compared to187 declines on BSE.