Indian share markets witnessed positive trading activity throughout the day today and ended higher.

Benchmark indices extended gains to a second straight day after the RBI decided to keep the key rates unchanged and remain 'accommodative' after a scheduled review.

The market cheered the announcements with the easing of concerns about an earlier-than-expected tightening of monetary policy.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 381 points (up 0.6%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 105 points (up 0.6%).

Reliance Industries and Wipro were among the top gainers today.

SBI Life Insurance and Coal India, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,914, up by 105 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 0.2% and 0.8%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the energy sector and IT sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Realty stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of Persistent Systems and TVS Srichakra hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended the day up by 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively. The Nikkei ended up by 1.3% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a flat note today with the Dow Futures trading down by 1 point.

The rupee is trading at 74.98 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 46,927 per 10 grams.

In news from the FMCG sector, Emami was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Emami Agrotech, an Emami Group company in the business of branded edible oils, spices and soya chunks, is planning to invest around Rs 10 bn - Rs 15 bn over the next three years to emerge as one of the leading food companies.

In order to become a complete food company, it is exploring various options of foraying into higher margin-based categories.

Following an aggressive business strategy, the company aims to increase its turnover to Rs 250 bn by 2025 from over Rs 125 bn at present.

Its Rs 6 bn greenfield plant in Gujarat's Kandla has commenced production of edible oil.

The commencement of production at the Kandla plant takes the total edible oil production capacity of the company to over 12,000 tonnes per day (TPD) from its earlier capacity of 9,000 TPD.

The company, which created a strong presence in the edible oil industry with its brands 'Healthy & Tasty' and 'Himani Best Choice', ventured into the spice market by launching a diverse range of spices and tastemakers under the brand name 'Emami Healthy and Tasty Mantra' in 2019. Last year, it forayed into the soya chunks category.

Emami is also one of the largest manufacturers of biodiesel (Palm Methyl Ester) in eastern India and a key exporter of biodiesel to Europe and other South East Asian Countries.

Emami share price ended the day up by 0.6% on the BSE.

Speaking of the FMCG sector, have a look at the chart below which shows the performance of BSE Sensex and BSE FMCG index since 2009.

While the Sensex has offered 393% returns since 2009, the BSE FMCG index has gone up a staggering 532% returns over the same period.

With a rising population and standards of living, Indian's consumption demand for FMCG products will skyrocket over the coming years.

Moving on to news from the macroeconomic space...

RBI Keeps Policy Rate Unchanged for 8th Time in a Row

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday voted unanimously to maintain status quo with regard to the policy repo rate and by a majority of 5 to 1 to retain the accommodative policy stance.

The marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the bank rate remain unchanged at 4.3% and the reverse repo rate also remains unchanged at 3.4%, he said. Stating that the growth impulses seemed to be strengthening he said the inflation trajectory was turning out to be more favourable than anticipated.

The RBI has retained real gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection at 9.5% in 2021- 22 consisting of 7.9% in quarter two, 6.8% in quarter three; and 6.1% in quarter four of 2021-22.

Real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2022-23 is projected at 17.2%. He said headline CPI inflation at 5.3% in August registered a moderation for the second consecutive month and a decline of one percentage point from its level in June 2021.

Food inflation expected to remain muted in coming month on back of record production of food grains.

The RBI has proposed to increase per transaction limit of IMPS from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

With RTGS now operational round the clock, there has been a corresponding increase in settlement cycles of IMPS, thereby reducing the credit and settlement risks.

The RBI said that this will lead to further increase in digital payments and provide an additional facility to customers for making digital payments beyond Rs 2 lakh.

Further, the RBI has proposed to introduce a framework for carrying out retail digital payments in offline mode across the country.

It had conducted pilot tests of innovative technology that enables retail digital payments even in situations where internet connectivity is low not available (offline mode).

We will keep you posted on more updates from this space.