New Delhi: As widely anticipated by financial markets and policy observers, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) opted to maintain the policy repo rate at its current level of 6.50 percent during its meeting on Thursday.
RBI MPC meeting: The RBI MPC has maintained the repo rate at 6.5 per cent for five consecutive times till December 2023. The benchmark interest rate was last hiked in February 2023, when it was raised from 6.25 per cent to the present 6.5 per cent.
Debt fund managers feel that through the Interim Budget 2024, the government has given positive signals for both long duration bond funds such as government securities (GSecs) as also for equity funds in general.
Nifty Metal led the losses, falling around 1 percent. Nifty Pharma, Infra and IT indices were also trading with losses. On the flipside, gains in Nifty PSU Bank, Auto, Bank, Energy and FMCG indices capped losses for the headline indices.
“While we did not expect any major announcements in this budget, the lower fiscal deficit coupled with higher capex outlay will aid continued momentum of India growth story. Both of these moves are enablers for a pickup in the private capex cycle,” says Ashish Gupta, CIO, Axis Mutual Fund