Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex on August 4 snapped its four-day winning run and fell by 115 points to 28,071.93 as the Reserve Bank disappointed the market by keeping the key policy rate unchanged citing inflationary concerns. But, support came form buying in select banking stocks and a strong rupee.
Besides, the reaction to RBI status quo was largely tepid as the "policy was in line with the street expectation," said Alex Mathews, Head Research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial. In its third bi-monthly policy review on August 4, RBI kept the short-term lending rate, or repo rate, unchanged at 7.25 per cent and the cash reserve ratio (CRR), the amount of deposits lenders park with RBI, at 4 per cent.
Retaining economy growth forecast at 7.6 per cent for 2015-16, the apex bank said outlook was improving gradually. Banking shares, like SBI, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, closed up but HDFC Bank ended 0.57 per cent lower. Rupee, which ended higher against dollar in previous session, on August 4 strengthened by over 25 paise.
This put pressure on IT companies, including TCS, Infosys and Wipro, which earn most of their revenues in US currency. In highly volatile trade, the 30-share BSE index after rising to touch the day's of 28,264.72 points in early trade, quickly slipped into the negative terrain and dipped below the 28,000-mark to touch a low of 27,866.12 before the RBI policy announcement.
However, it tried to recover after the RBI kept key policy rates unchanged and trimmed most of losses to close the session 115.13 points or 0.41 per cent lower at 28,071.93. The gauge had rallied by 727.83 points in the previous four straight sessions. On similar lines, the 50-share Nifty, after moving both ways, settled with a loss of 26.15 points or 0.31 per cent at 8,516.90.
Intra-day, it dipped below the 8,500-mark to hit a low of 8,448.25 and touched a high of 8,565.15. Broader markets, however, outperformed Sensex as investors widened their positions lifting the mid-cap index by 1.11 per cent, while small-cap index gained 0.67 per cent. In overseas markets, European shares edged higher in choppy trade.
Key benchmark indices in the UK and Germany were up 0.23 per cent to 0.27 per cent, while France's index was off 0.26 per cent.
