Interest rate sensitive stocks in limelight post RBI policy

Interest rate sensitive realty, auto and bank stocks were in the limelight on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India expectedly left its key interest rate unchanged as inflation remains a major risk.

Among the realty firms, shares of Godrej Properties jumped 4.61 per cent, DLF rallied 4.60 per cent, Macrotech Developers climbed 4.06 per cent, Indiabulls Real Estate (2.69 per cent), Brigade Enterprises (2.08 per cent), The Phoenix Mills (1.81 per cent), Oberoi Realty (1.70 per cent) and Sobha Ltd (0.43 per cent).

The BSE realty gauge jumped 3.01 per cent to 4,695.42.

From the auto pack, Apollo Tyres gained 1.97 per cent, Bosch climbed 1.88 per cent, Maruti (0.81 per cent), TVS Motor (0.76 per cent), MRF (0.71 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (0.69 per cent), Tata Motors (0.41 per cent), Mahindra & Mahindra (0.41 per cent) and Eicher Motors (0.30 per cent).

The BSE auto index climbed 0.43 per cent to 36,233.46.

'It comes as no surprise that policy rates remained unchanged. This is in line with the expectations and markets are happy about it,' Srikanth Subramanian, CEO of Kotak Cherry, said.

Among bank stocks, IndusInd Bank rallied 2.38 per cent, Bank of Baroda (1.32 per cent), Canara Bank (1.13 per cent), Federal Bank (0.51 per cent), Kotak Mahindra Bank (0.48 per cent), ICICI Bank (0.47 per cent) and State Bank of India (0.31 per cent).

The BSE bank index climbed 0.34 per cent to 49,851.94.

"Indian stock markets remained nonchalant to the RBI policy announcement as a pause on the policy rates was unanimously expected," Amar Ambani, Group President and head - Institutional Equities at Yes Securities, said.

The Reserve Bank of India expectedly left its key interest rate unchanged on Friday as inflation remains a major risk, and signalled it would keep liquidity tight using bond sales to bring prices closer to target.

The monetary policy committee, which has three members from the central bank and a similar number of external members, held the benchmark repurchase rate (repo) at 6.50 per cent in a unanimous decision for the fourth consecutive meeting in a row. It retained a 'withdrawal of accommodation' stance.

The 30-share BSE benchmark climbed 364.06 points or 0.55 per cent to settle at 65,995.63.