After opening the day flat, share markets in India witnessed volatile trading activity throughout the day and ended the day on a weak note. Losses were seen across most sectors with stocks in the PSU sector and stocks in the oil & gas sector, leading the losses. While stocks in the realty sector gained the most.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 64 points (down 0.2%) and the NSE Nifty closed down by 13 points (down 0.1%). The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day up by 0.1%, while the BSE Small Cap index ended the day up by 0.3%.

Asian stock markets finished mixed. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng was up by 0.9% and the Shanghai Composite was up by 0.6%. The Nikkei 225 was down by 0.6%. European markets were trading flat. The FTSE 100 was down by 0.1%. The DAX too, was down by 0.1% while the CAC 40 was flat.

The rupee was trading at Rs 64.09 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 59.74 at the time of writing.

In news from global financial markets. Minutes of the Japan central bank’s last policy meeting released this week showed that a majority of policymakers agreed that central bank must persistently purse powerful monetary easing. But additional stimulus measures were unnecessary for now.

The BOJ kept its policy steady as preferred by most of its policymakers at the two-day meeting that ended on 31 October 2017. But newly added member, Goushi Kataoka preferred more easing. Thus, complicating future efforts by the bank to withdraw stimulus.

A majority of the members were of view that extreme monetary easing only to achieve price goal could prevent monetary accommodation from producing intended policy effects. So taking additional monetary easing now would have more demerits than merits.

Most members felt that maintaining current policy was sufficient, though conceding it may take some time before firms more actively raise prices and wages, the minutes showed.