Sensex breaks 8-day upward streak, Nifty above 18K

Hi all, welcome to ET Market Watch - your daily podcast where we bring all the latest info from the world of stock market every single day. I am Neha Vashishth from ET Markets, let's start.

Sensex and Nifty closed in the red ahead of the US Fed Reserve decision due tonight. Sensex declined 161 pts and settled at 61,193 while Nifty, on the other hand, dropped 58 pts and ended at 18, 090.

Today's gainers and losers
Bharti Airtel, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, L&T and TCS were the top losers, falling over 1%. On the flip side, HUL, Asian Paints, Tata Motors, UltraTech Cement, ITC and Nestle closed higher.

Stocks in news today
Shares of Spandana Sphoorty Financial ended 4% higher after Q4 results.
UCO Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank closed 5% and 7.6% lower, respectively after Q4 earnings.

Sectorally, Nifty IT fell 1% and Nifty PSU Bank declined 0.98%.
Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Metal also closed lower.
Nifty Midcap 100 gained 0.26%, while Smallcap 100 fell 0.07%.

Global markets
Some Asian markets were closed today - Japan's Nikkei 225 and Shanghai were closed while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.18%.

Currency and crude
Rupee settled at 81.81 against the US dollar, tracking the weakness of the American currency in the overseas market. WTI, traded under $70 per barrel for the first time since OPEC+ cut output a month ago but recovered slightly to $70.12. That's it for today, stay tuned to ET Markets for more.