RBI Maintains Status Quo; Banking, Reality Down

Indian shares ended flat on Tuesday, rebounding from earlier losses on the back of a late rally in metals and mining stocks. Key benchmark indices witnessed marginal recovery in rate sensitive shares in late trades helped markets recoup intra-day losses to finally end flat even as the Reserve Bank of India at its policy meet early today maintained status quo on key rates.

The broader markets outperformed the benchmarks after the BSE Mid-cap index gained 0.7% and Small-cap index ended up 1.2%.

On the domestic front, the Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan on Tuesday held repo rate unchanged at 7.5 per cent, as expected. Further, the CRR or cash reserve ratio, which is the amount of deposits lenders must keep with the RBI, was also left unchanged at 4 per cent.

It may be recalled that the RBI Governor had surprised the markets by announcing a cut in the repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.75% on 15 January 2015 and reduction in repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.5% on 4 March 2015.

In currency space, the Indian rupee traded lower by 13 paise at 62.32 compared to the previous close of 62.19 to the US dollar after the appreciation of the US currency overseas.

Among the sectoral indices- Top Gainers: S&P BSE Metal rose 2.20%, S&P BSE Power up 0.93% and S&P BSE CD rose 0.66%. Top Losers: S&P BSE Realty down 1.62%, S&P BSE Bankex down 0.71% and S&P BSE HC fell 0.19%

The 30-share Sensex ended up 12 points at 28517 while the 50-share Nifty ended higher by 15 points at 8675