Mumbai: Interest-sensitive realty, banking and auto stocks fell up to 6 percent on Tuesday after the Reserve Bank kept interest rates unchanged in its bi-monthly monetary policy.
Among realty stocks, Indiabulls Real Estate plunged 5.33 percent, DLF by 4.77 percent and Unitech by 4.77 percent. Anant Raj fell by 2.56 percent, Phoenix Mills by 2.25 percent and Godrej Properties by 1.63 percent.
Tracking losses in these counters, the BSE realty index lost 2.66 percent to settle at 1,581.27.
Among banking scrips, Bank of India fell by 3.54 percent, AXIS Bank lost 2.18 percent, while Yes Bank (1.77 percent), Canara Bank (1.71 percent), ICICI Bank (1.52 percent) and SBI (0.21 percent) also declined.
The BSE banking index ended 0.47 percent lower at 17,615.46.
Shares of Mahindra & Mahindra fell by 1.62 percent, Tata Motors was down 1.57 percent and Hero MotoCorp by 0.76 percent. The BSE auto index settled 0.06 percent down at 17,746.90.
"Banking stocks and other rate sensitive sectors such as auto and realty declined sharply as RBI kept the key policy rates steady," said Rakesh Goyal, Senior Vice President, Bonanza Portfolio.
Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan today left all key rates unchanged citing continued risks to inflation and difficult external situation especially on the geopolitical front.
The short-term lending rate (repo) rate remained at 8 percent, and the cash reserve requirement of banks at 4 per cent. The statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) has also been retained at 22 percent.
"In line with market expectation, the RBI governor kept the key policy rate unchanged in the monetary policy today but we saw index moving erratically in both directions post announcement," said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.
In the broader market, the BSE benchmark Sensex ended at 26,630.51, up 33.40 points.
