Banking shares gain as retail inflation hits eight-month low

Banking shares were trading higher by up to 3% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in early morning trade after the consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation declined to an eight-month low of 3.78% in July, raising hopes that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may lower key policy rates. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL REPORT.

Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank were up 3% each at Rs 181 and Rs 301 respectively. State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, YES Bank, Federal Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank were up 1%-2% each.

At 09:21 AM, Bank Nifty, the banking share index, was up 1.57% at 18,343 as compared to 0.87% rise in the CNX Nifty.

Retail inflation dropped to 3.78% in July from nine-month high of 5.4% in June led by a steep plunge in food inflation to 2.2% from 5.5%. The drop was mainly due to a high base effect – in July last year, inflation in fruits and vegetables had nearly doubled, causing inflation to surge.

 

Industrial production growth climbed to 3.8% in June from 2.5% in May. On a month-on-month basis, however, growth remained weak.

CRISIL Research believe CPI inflation will average 5.8% in 2015-16, down from 6% in 2014-15, and expect the RBI to reduce the repo rate by another 25 bps in 2015.

We expect GDP growth to rise to 7.4% from 7.3% in FY15. On the demand side, we expect consumption revival to be moderate, cushioned somewhat by lower inflation and interest-rate cuts. We expect industrial GDP growth to inch up to 6.5% from 6.1% last fiscal, said rating agency in a report.

Meanwhile, in past one week, Bank Nifty had underperformed the market by falling 5% against 2.8% decline in the benchmark index till yesterday.