Benchmark indices were trading higher on Wednesday morning as the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy committee (MPC) maintained an accomodative stance, keeping the repo rates unchanged.

Markets opened on a positive note, tracking positive global cues ahead of the meet. Benchmark indices extended gains as the MPC maintained a widely expected accommodative stance.

At 10:18 am, the Sensex was trading at 58,415.29, up 781.64 points or 1.36 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 58,495.46 and a low of 58,122.27. The Nifty 50 was trading at 17,403.60, up 226.90 points or 1.32 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 17,424.65 and a low of 17,308.95.

Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Grasim, Bajaj Finserv and HCL tech were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while HDFC Life, Divi's Lab,Maruti and Coal India were the only four stocks trading in the red on the Nifty 50.

As was widely expected, the six-member MPC left the policy repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent and continued with its accommodative stance in the backdrop of the possible threat to the economy from the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus.

While the vote for leaving the policy repo rate unchanged was unanimous, the members voted 5-1 to maintain the accommodative stance.

The RBI, did not up the reverse repo rate as part of its monetary policy normalisation process, which commenced with conducting variable rate reverse repo (VRRR) for higher amounts and discontinuation of the Government Securities Acquisition Programme (G-SAP).

The policy repo rate is the interest rate at which the central bank provides funds to banks to overcome short-term liquidity mismatches.

The reverse repo rate is the interest rate that banks earn for parking short-term surplus liquidity with RBI. It is currently at 3.35 per cent.

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