Namaste friends! Before we get into the markets update, here's an incredible story about a man from Denmark who accomplished the remarkable feat of traveling to 203 countries in just 10 years without taking a single flight! Now that's really going places and fulfilling travel dreams in a unique way.

Moving to our own markets, it turned out to be a weak closing session today after some volatility. The benchmark indices ended lower, giving up some of their gains from the past few days as bears took charge. 

The BSE Sensex declined 0.4% or 307 points to end at 65,688. The NSE Nifty 50 fell 0.4% or 89 points to settle at 19,543. 

Among sectors, Media and metal stocks managed to buck the bearish trend and close in the green. Media shares surged nearly 7% while metals rose 0.6%. In contrast, FMCG and PSU Bank stocks were the top drag on indices, with FMCG shares falling 0.9% and PSU banks declining 0.8%.

Drilling down to individual stocks in the Nifty 50, the top gainers were Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and IndusInd Bank which managed to close 1.6%, 1.6% and 1.5% higher respectively. 

On the losing side, Asian Paints took the biggest hit, falling 3%. Kotak Mahindra Bank stock declined 1.8%, Britannia fell 1.3%, Bajaj Finserv was down 1.2% and Bajaj Finance slipped 1.1% among top drags.

In stock specific news, Grasim Industries reported an 18% year-on-year decline in consolidated Q1 net profit to Rs 1,576 crore. Performance was impacted by weak chemical prices resulting in lower realizations in standalone businesses, although cement and financial services arms did well.

Adani Enterprises clarified it has no plans to sell its stake in the FMCG joint venture Adani Wilmar after some media speculation over the same. 

Shares of Trent, which operates the Westside retail chain, surged over 5% post its strong quarterly results driven by a 54% revenue growth in the June quarter. It added 49 new stores during this period.

On the regulatory front, the RBI maintained status quo on key interest rates for the third consecutive policy review, keeping the repo rate unchanged at 6.5%. However, it marginally raised its inflation forecast for FY24 to 5.4% from 5.1% earlier due to rising vegetable, cereal and crude prices. 

Markets reacted negatively as the RBI also mandated banks to maintain higher cash reserve ratio which is expected to suck out liquidity worth Rs 90,000 crore from the system. The Nifty Bank index fell over 300 points or 0.7% following this move.

That summarizes the key highlights and action of the day!