Mumbai, Feb 8 (IANS): Nifty fell in late morning trade on Thursday, pulled down by bank stocks after the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy decision and dragging by the ITC, said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

At close on Thursday, Nifty was down 0.97 per cent or 212.6 points at 21,717.95, while Sensex ended lower by 723.57 points or 1 per cent at 71,428.43.

Cash market volumes on the NSE rose to Rs 1.47 lakh crore. The Midcap Index ended marginally in the positive even as the advance-decline ratio fell to 0.60:1.

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday decided to keep the key policy rate unchanged for the sixth time in a row as it maintains a tight vigil on inflation, he said.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said that though the FY25 GDP growth forecast has improved, the RBI remains vigilant on inflation and banking liquidity. The incomplete transmission of the cumulative 250 bps and the inflation ruling above the target level adds uncertainty about the timing of the interest rate reduction.

The ripple effect was seen in the government 10-year yield, which inched higher. A large pocket of the market slid into red like FMCG, banks, and auto. FMCG got higher impacted by weak Q3 result and downgrade in volume growth, in the near-term, due to weak rural demand, he said.