Indian stock indices Sensex and the Nifty50 ended lower on Thursday, after a highly lackluster session, on weak global cues.

The mood was cautious for most part of the session, with investors looking ahead to the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy. The central bank came out with its policy review around mid afternoon. While holding the repo rate at 6.25%, the apex bank raised the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 6%.

A somewhat hawkish Fed minutes rendered Wall Street weak overnight, and most of the markets across the Asian region exhibited weakness today. 

The BSE benchmark Sensex ended down 46.90 points or 0.16% at 29,927.34, around 110 points off the day's low of 29,817.59. The Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange, which declined to 9218.85 intraday, ended at 9261.95, down 3.20 points or 0.03% from its previous close.

In the forex market, the rupee recovered after opening at 65.05 against the U.S. dollar, as compared to previous close of 64.88, and was trading at 64.63 around late afternoon, gaining 25 paise.

FMCG, consumer durables and healthcare stocks traded weak. IT, capital goods, metal and telecom stocks ended on a mixed note, while oil and power stocks fared well.

Reliance Industries, which hit a fresh 9-year high, ended 1.7% up. Tata Steel also gained 1.7%. Bajaj Auto, Power Grid Corporation and GAIL India ended higher by 1.2% - 1.5%. Wipro, ONGC, NTPC, Axis Bank, Asian Paints, Infosys and Hero Motocorp posted modest gains.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Ambuja Cements, UltraTech Cement, ACC, IndusInd Bank, BPCL and Indian Oil Corporation gained 1% - 2%.

Hindalco, ITC, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Coal India, Maruti Suzuki, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Aurobindo Pharma and Tata Power declined by 1% - 2.2%.

The market breadth was even. Out of 3019 stocks traded on BSE, 1469 stocks advanced. 1413 stocks declined and 137 stocks ended flat.

The central bank said that the decision of the MPC is consistent with a neutral stance of monetary policy in consonance with the objective of achieving the medium-term target for consumer price index inflation of 4% within a band of plus/minus 2%, while supporting growth.

The central bank projects inflation to average 4.5% in the first of 2017-18 and 5% in the second half. Growth is projcted to be 7.4% in the year, up from 6.7% last year. The bank is of the view that the pace of remonetisation will continue to trigger a rebound in discretionary consumer spending, saying significant improvement in transmission of past policy rate reductions into banks’ lending rates post demonetisation should help encourage both consumption and investment demand of healthy corporations.

Among rate sensitive sectors, automobile and banking space were quite sluggish ahead of RBI policy and remained that way till the end of the session. However, realty stocks had a good outing following the central bank's decision to allow banks to invest in REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and InvITs (Infrastructure Investment Trusts).