Market skids to 3-week low as RBI to continue with anti-inflationary stance

Key benchmark indices dropped to three-week lows as concerns over Greece's debt crisis rattled world stocks. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) was near 52-week low. The BSE Sensex lost146.36 points or 0.81%, off close to 165 points from the day's high and up close to 30 points from the day's low. The Sensex fell below the psychological 18,000 mark. The market breadth was weak.

Interest rate sensitive realty, banking and auto stocks declined after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised its key lending rate viz. the repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.5%, as expected, after a mid-quarter monetary policy review today, 16 June 2011, to tame inflation and said the monetary policy stance remains firmly anti-inflationary.