Equity markets tanked for the day primarily on the back of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) inaction in its monetary policy review. Domestic indices started off the day higher tracking positive cues from Asian markets however as soon as the monetary policy was announced the markets dipped lower in disappointment. The Central bank decided to keep the key rates unchanged at 8%. The strong opening by European markets was also unable to revive the domestic indices. Market breadth was weak. On BSE, 1,694 shares declined and 997 shares gained.
The BSE Sensex crossed the 17,000 level to touch a intraday high of 17,110 and a low of 16,636 before it closed 1.4% or 244 points lower at 16,705. Mid cap and small cap stocks too declined however it was the small cap stocks which fell marginally lesser than the large cap counterparts. The BSE Mid-cap and BSE Small-cap indices fell 1.1% and 0.7% respectively. The S&P CNX Nifty ended 1.5% or 75 points lower at 5,064.
Among the BSE – 30 stocks, only two stocks gained while the others declined. The top five losers were SBI, Sterlite Ind, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Dr.Reddy which fell 4.4%, 4.3%, 3.3%, 2.7% and 2.4% respectively. The only two gainers were Tata Steel and Bajaj Auto which grew by 1.3% and 0.9% respectively.
Except the BSE Consumer Durable index, rest all the indices declined on the BSE sectoral space. The index grew by 0.2%. The interest rate sensitive sectors clearly looked disappointed with RBI not cutting rates. The BSE Bankex and BSE Realty indices were the top losers which fell 3.2% and 2.8% respectively. The BSE FMCG, BSE PSU and BSE Power indices were among the other key losers which dropped between 1.3% - 1.7%.
