New Delhi, India (BBN)-India’s benchmark stock indices were trading up around 0.5 per cent in early trades ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s bi-monthly monetary policy announcement, tracking gains in global markets.
The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 26,871.54, up 94 points or 0.4 per cent, while the wider NSE Nifty 50 index was at 8,227.90 up 27 points or 0.3 per cent, reports the Hindustan Times.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan is widely expected to keep key repo rate unchanged on Tuesday, given that inflation has risen, oil prices have rebound to $50 a barrel and there are uncertainties surrounding the monsoon, the next move by the US Federal Reserve and the referendum in Britain later this month to decide whether to remain in the European Union.
“I don’t think there is much RBI can do this time around… Fed, Britain’s exit, the monsoon, oil has rebound to $50 from mid-$30…Between these three four things, clearly this is not the time to be sending a message by cutting reference rate,” said Gagan Banga, vice-chairman and MD of Indiabulls Housing Finance, country’s second largest private mortgage lender.
Overseas Asian markets hit a five-week high after the federal reserve chairperson Janet Yellen took a more cautious stance on rate hikes following a weak employment data.
Yellen has refused to give any time line for the next interest rate hike, and the latest US jobs data, which she has termed disappointing, may signal that any hike may not happen this month as was expected by some earlier.
BBN/SK/AD