On Wednesday, August 17, key Indian stock indices finished the session in negative territory amid yesterday’s remarks by New York Fed President William Dudley and Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart.The New York Fed head noted that there is a likelihood of a Fed rate hike as early as September, while Lockhart said that he expects one rate hike this year, but does not rule out two rate increases. Recapping the indices, the Nifty 50 eased 0.21% to 8,624.05, while the BSE Sensex Index also fell 0.21% to 28,005.37. Notably, Indian debt and currency markets were closed today due to a public holiday in the State of Maharashtra. In the currency market, by 11:13 GMT the USD/INR pair firmed 0.15% to 66.956, while the EUR/INR added 0.09% to 75.4720. The yield on 10-year Indian government bonds remained unchanged at 7.106%.Metal, automotive, industrial, pharmaceutical and telecom names outperformed, while the day’s decliners were technology and O&G plays. In other corporate developments, software services provider Infosys tumbled 1.76% on news British lender Royal Bank of Scotland terminated an IT agreement with the company. At the same time, InterGlobe Aviation, the owner of low-cost air carrier IndiGo, spiked 3.85% after being upgraded at Citi from neutral to buy. From a technical standpoint, the BSE Sensex Index, still trading within an ascending wedge, has approached its lower bound, while the Slow Stochastic Oscillator shows a bullish trend. As a result, we expect the index to trade higher in the short term.