Interest rate-sensitive bank and realty stocks witnessed selling pressure after the RBI today kept the key policy rate unchanged.
Among realty scrips, Omaxe fell by 3.21 per cent, DLF was down 2.99 per cent, Indiabulls Real Estate lost 2.76 per cent and Unitech dipped 2.56 per cent on the BSE.
Others like, Prestige Estates went down by 2.33 per cent, Phoenix Mills (-2.20 per cent) and Sobha Ltd (-1.89 per cent).
Following the losses in these scrips, the BSE realty index fell by 1.62 per cent to end at 1,771.05.
Bank stocks also faced selling pressure, where AXIS Bank fell by 1.69 per cent, ICICI Bank was down 1.20 per cent, Kotak Mahindra Bank slipped 0.99 per cent and State Bank of India dipped 0.97 per cent.
Led by the decline in these stocks, the BSE realty index closed the day at 21,206.19, down 0.71 per cent.
RBI today kept the key policy rate unchanged on fears of unseasonal rains impacting food prices, but nudged banks to lower lending rates while rejecting as "nonsense" their contention that cost of credit remains high.
The repo rate, at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to the banking system, will continue to be at 7.5 per cent and the cash reserve ratio, which is the amount of deposits parked with the central bank, will remain at 4 per cent. Bank rate has also been retained at 8.5 per cent.
"RBI maintained status quo in its bi-monthly monetary policy meet today and took a breather from rate cut cycle. RBI is also awaiting full data from the economy after bank's cut rates themselves and the effects of transmission of earlier rate cuts is seen clearer. Thus, the move was widely anticipated by the markets and was discounted in current market prices," said Hiren Dhakan, Associate Fund manager, Bonanza Portfolio Ltd.
In the stock market the BSE benchmark Sensex ended the day on a flat note at 28,516.59, up 12.13 points.
