Mumbai, Dec 15: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today lost 45 points ahead of RBI's monetary policy and the rupee's falling to record low amid weak Asian cues.
The Sensex, which lost 121 points yesterday, declined another 44.67 points, or 0.28 per cent, to 15,836.47, after moving between gains and losses through the session.
It touched day's low of 15,596.22 and a high of 15,908.02 as 13 of the 30-BSE index stocks rose while others fell.
On similar lines, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty fell 16.90 points, or 0.35 per cent to 4,746.35. It touched a low of 4,673.85 and a high of 4,768.65 points rate during the session.
Brokers said the sharply weaker rupee may hit profits of a large number of companies by making imports costly.
The rupee breached tumbled 61 paise to Rs 54.32 per US dollar to record low in early trade today on sustained demand for the American currency and persistent capital outflows.
They said investors were also cautious ahead of the Reserve Bank's policy review tomorrow as the overall inflation is still high at above 9 per cent, although the broad consensus is that it may not hike key rates further.
RBI has raised rates 13 times since March 2010 to tame inflation.
Meanwhile, the food inflation dipped to 4.35 per cent for week ended December 3 from 6.6 per cent in the previous week.
Brokers said the Asian markets remained weak amid continuing uncertainty over the euro-zone debt crisis and apprehensions of global economic slowdown.
The capital goods index suffered the most, losing 1.91 per cent to 8,811.57, followed by consumer durables index— down 1.62 per cent to 5,310.32. Auto index fell 1.23 per cent to 8,168.23, banking index by 0.98 per cent to 9,728.21 and IT index by 0.57 per cent to 5,770.17
