Indian shares inched back from session highs to fall 1 percent on Friday even though RBI unleashed an array of measures to help cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Reserve Bank of India joined other central banks across the world to slash interest rates in order to help support the economy.
RBI Monetary Policy Committee, in a press conference today, cut repo rate by 75 bps to 4.4 percent. It was the first time the MPC met outside its bi-monthly meeting calendar. It also cut CRR by 100 bps to 3 percent and allowed a 3-month moratorium to all banks, financial institutions on all loans.
In the afternoon deals, the BSE Sensex was trading around 400 points lower at 29,552, whereas the Nifty50 index was down 48 points at 8,593. The broader markets were mixed with Nifty Midcap down 1.3 percent and the Nifty Smallcap up 0.5 percent.
Axis Bank, Cipla, Coal India, SBI, and ICICI Bank were the top gainers on the Nifty50 index, while Bharti Airtel, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, HCL Tech, and GAIL led the losses.
The banking indices also slipped from their day's high but were still in the green. The Nifty Bank was up 1 percent. Nifty Auto fell the most, down 3.2 percent followed bu Nifty Realty, down 1.5 percent. Meanwhile, Nifty IT, Nifty Metal and Nifty Pharma also fell around 0.4 percent each.
Globally, Asian stocks rose on Friday as investors wagered policymakers will roll out more stimulus measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic after US unemployment filings surged to a record.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 3.88 percent, capping its biggest weekly gain on record. Australian shares gave up gains to fall 5.3 percent after a strong week.
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First Published: IST