RBI's decision disappoints investors

For the second straight session the Sensex could not manage to recover from its lows despite the revival of buying interest in frontline stocks at their existing low levels. The Sensex took a cue from positive Asian indices in early trades and resumed firm at 18,346, up 193 points on expectations that the Reserve Bank of India may cut the interest rate following its US counterpart. But, the RBI's decision to keep key interest rates unchanged did not go down well with the market. All the rate sensitive sectors like auto, bank, and realty were hit hard as the central bank kept the rates unchanged. The Sensex touched the intra-day low of 17,928, down 225 points from the last close. However, the Sensex recovered some losses towards the close and ended the session at 18,092, down 61 points, while the Nifty moved up by seven points to close at 5,281.

The market breadth was neutral. Of the 2,793 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,397 stocks advanced, 1,354 stocks declined and 42 stocks ended unchanged. Barring a few most of the indices closed in the green. The BSE Bankex index lost sharply and declined by 3.48% followed by the BSE Realty index (down 2.70%), the BSE PSU index (down 0.97%) and the BSE CG index (down 0.90%). However, BSE FMCG index surged 2.67% and the BSE IT index gained 1.93%.

Several index heavyweights managed to recover from their steep losses. HLL led the pack and shot up by 3.96% at Rs207. Hindalco soared 3.42% at Rs180, Cipla surged 3.33% at Rs191, Infosys flared up by 3.20% at Rs1,493, Tata Steel jumped by 2.55% at Rs716, HDFC added 2.47% at Rs2,851, and ITC advanced by 2.42% at Rs201. However, ICICI Bank tumbled by nearly 4.19% at Rs1,220, SBI dropped 3.58% at Rs2,225, HDFC Bank slumped 3.36% at Rs1,532, Bajaj Auto shed 2.82% at Rs2,390 and Bharti Airtel lost 2.22% at Rs850.

Over 1.99 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Hindustan Futuristic Communications (1.83 crore shares), Essar Oil (1.19 crore shares), Ispat Industries (93.23 lakh shares) and Reliance Petroleum (91.22 lakh shares).

Valuewise, RNRL clocked a turnover of Rs292 crore on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (Rs288 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs182 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs156 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs140 crore).