Mumbai: Interest rate-sensitive bank and realty stocks witnessed selling pressure after the RBI today kept the key policy rate unchanged.
Among realty scrips, Omaxe fell by 3.21 percent, DLF was down 2.99 percent, Indiabulls Real Estate lost 2.76 percent and Unitech dipped 2.56 percent on the BSE.
Others like, Prestige Estates went down by 2.33 percent, Phoenix Mills (-2.20 percent) and Sobha Ltd (-1.89 percent).
Following the losses in these scrips, the BSE realty index fell by 1.62 percent to end at 1,771.05.
Bank stocks also faced selling pressure, where AXIS Bank fell by 1.69 percent, ICICI Bank was down 1.20 percent, Kotak Mahindra Bank slipped 0.99 percent and State Bank of India dipped 0.97 percent.
Led by the decline in these stocks, the BSE realty index closed the day at 21,206.19, down 0.71 percent.
RBI today kept the key policy rate unchanged on fears of unseasonal rains impacting food prices, but nudged banks to lower lending rates while rejecting as "nonsense" their contention that cost of credit remains high.
The repo rate, at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to the banking system, will continue to be at 7.5 percent and the cash reserve ratio, which is the amount of deposits parked with the central bank, will remain at 4 percent. Bank rate has also been retained at 8.5 percent.
"RBI maintained status quo in its bi-monthly monetary policy meet today and took a breather from rate cut cycle. RBI is also awaiting full data from the economy after bank's cut rates themselves and the effects of transmission of earlier rate cuts is seen clearer. Thus, the move was widely anticipated by the markets and was discounted in current market prices," said Hiren Dhakan, Associate Fund manager, Bonanza Portfolio Ltd.
In the stock market the BSE benchmark Sensex ended the day on a flat note at 28,516.59, up 12.13 points.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 7, 2015, 18:28