Selling pressure in Banking, Auto and Realty stocks led the Indian equity markets to close the day in the negative. Markets edged lower in the afternoon on back of profit-booking in rate sensitive sectors after the central bank's policy action. While the BSE-Sensex closed lower by 160 points, the NSE-Nifty closed lower by 53 points. Both the BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap closed on a weak note.
As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed. European indices have opened in the green. The rupee was trading at Rs 53.83 to the dollar at the time of writing.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today cut the repo rate by 25 basis points for the third time since January, as growth and inflation slows. The Reserve Bank of India trimmed the repo rate to 7.25%, its lowest since May 2011, and kept the cash reserve ratio (CRR) for banks unchanged at 4%. However, it warned that the risk of inflationary pressure persists despite a recent sharp decline in wholesale price index (WPI) inflation, and said a high current account deficit poses the biggest risk to the Indian economy. It has also said that there is little room to ease monetary policy further. The central bank has said that it expects the economy to grow at 5.7% in the fiscal year that started in April, and projected headline WPI inflation at around 5.5% during the year.
According to a leading financial daily, Nalco has cut domestic prices of aluminium ingots by 3% following a drop in global prices. The state-run company cut prices by Rs 4,000 (US$ 74.27) to Rs 126,700 per tonne for standard aluminium ingots. The company has been cutting prices over the past three months, during which aluminium prices have fallen about 8%. Prices of wire rods and billets have been reduced by Rs 3,500.
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