Rate sensitive stocks fall post RBI policy

Interest-rate sensitive bank, realty and auto stocks today fell up to 6.4 per cent after RBI reduced short-term lending rate by 0.25 per cent, which was in-line with market expectations.
Among banking stocks, ICICI fell by 5.45 per cent, State Bank of India by 5.38 per cent and Punjab National Bank by 4.61 per cent. Bank of Baroda (4.60 per cent) and Yes Bank (4.42 per cent) too declined.
The BSE bank index fell by 3.21 per cent to close at 17,857.96.
Among realty stocks, Indiabulls Real Estate tumbled 6.41 per cent, Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd was down 4.99 per cent. DLF (4.51 per cent), Unitech (4.26 per cent), Sobha (3.05 per cent), D B Realty (2.89 per cent) and Oberoi Realty (1.35 per cent) were also among the losers.

The BSE realty index ended 2.59 per cent lower at 1,224.59.
Auto stocks also faced selling pressure, with Tata Motors falling 4.52 per cent, Eicher Motors by 3.81 per cent, Maruti Suzuki India by 3.66 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra by 2.39 per cent and Bajaj Auto by 2.17 per cent.

The BSE auto index went down by 2.82 per cent to end at 17,581.38.
"The rate cut of 25 basis points was on the expected lines. Thus, with no positive surprise, markets came off, post the policy announcement," said Kamlesh Rao, CEO, Kotak Securities.
In the broader market, the BSE Sensex plunged 516.06 points or 2.03 per cent to end at 24,883.59.

Home, auto and other loans are set to become cheaper with RBI today reducing the short-term lending rate by 0.25 per cent to over 5-year low of 6.5 per cent, taking the total cut to 1.5 per cent since January last year.