Indian shares ended flat with a positive bias on Wednesday on global growth recovery optimism, however, caution prevailed ahead of the key monetary policy announcement by the US Federal Reserve later in the day.
The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex rose 12 points and ended at 20,00.47 provisionally while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty gained 6 points to provisionally end at 6,055.75
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Updated at 2:10PM
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Markets traded flat in a range of 10 points in afternoon trades on Wednesday as investors cautiously awaited the outcome of US Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the day.
Risk appetite was also frail after the Reserve Bank of India made further rate cuts conditional on government moves to control fiscal deficit.
At 2:10PM, the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index Sensex rose 30 points and traded at 20,016.30 while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty gained10.10 points at 6,060.70.
In the results calendar, Balrampur Chini and Titan Industries are scheduled to release their third-quarter results today while Bharti Infratel, ICICI Bank, Godrej Consumer Products, Lupin, Punjab National Bank, Siemens, Shobha Developers, Tata Global Beverages, Trent on Jan 31
Asian shares ended on a positive note. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.7% to 23,822, Taiwan's Weighted index gained 0.4% to 7,832, Singapore's Straits Times inched up 0.64% to 3,284 while China's Shanghai Composite gained 1%
to 2,382 and Japan's Nikkei surged 2.3% to 11,113.
US Federal Reserve ends a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday with investors focusing on the statement for any clues regarding a pull back from its aggressive easing stimulus.
Meanwhile, European markets traded flat. France's CAC gained 0.08% to 3,788, Germany's DAX was up 0.05% to 7,852 while UK's FTSE was down 0.15% to 6,329.
Back home, oil & gas, consumer durables, metal, banks rose while barring capital goods, auto, power and FMCG sectors, declined on BSE.
Among key Sensex stocks, Cipla rose 2.4%, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank gained 0.4% and 1% respectively, Hindalco and Sterlite Industries gaine 1% and 1.7% and Tata Steel notched up 2%, Reliance Industries gained 2% on BSE.
Among losers, GAIL fell 3%, ITC fell 1%, Larsen & Toubro and BHEL dropped 1% and 0.4%, Infosys fell 0.2% on BSE.
The broader markets are flat with mid-caps tad up by 0.03% while small-caps dropped 0.2% on BSE.
The market breadth was weak. Out of 2,829 stocks traded, 1,500 stocks declined compared to 1,190 advances on BSE.