Banking stocks fall as RBI's 'MPC says 'no rate cut'

Banking stocks gave away their gains since morning after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained a status quo on the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy.

RBI said, “On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation at its meeting today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to keep the policy rates unchanged.”

Right after the announcement, the Bank Nifty tumbled by over 272 points. However, at present they are trading at 18,223.10 down by 197.80 points or 1.08%.

All bank stocks were down with Bank of Baroda taking the top loser spot. It was trading at Rs 160.05 per piece on NSE, down by 1.39%, followed by IndusInd Bank at Rs 1070 per piece (1.17%), Bank of India at Rs 115.65 per piece (1.15), ICICI Bank at Rs 258.35 per piece (1.02%) and Punjab National Bank at Rs 132.85 (0.90%).

Other losers were – Yes Bank, Federal Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Canara Bank, State Bank of India and HDFC Bank crashed in the range of 0.03% - 0.90%.

The policy repo rate to 6.25% from 6.50%, while reverse repo rate was adjusted to 5.75% and that of bank rate at 6.75%.

Meanwhile, at 2.48 pm, the Sensex was trading 26,282.35 down by 110.41% or 0.42% and that of Nifty at 8,116.95 below 26.20 points or 0.32%.