Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty closed higher by more than half a per cent on Wednesday following buying in IT, financial and oil stocks after the RBI slowed down the pace of interest rate hikes. Ending its two-day slide, the 30-share BSE Sensex rebounded by 377.75 points or 0.63 per cent to close at 60,663.79 with 24 of its constituents posting gains. The broader Nifty of the NSE spurted by 150.20 points or 0.85 per cent to settle at 17,871.70, riding on a rally in Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and HDFC Life.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said the country's economy is an island of stability despite two Black Swan events and multiple shocks. "In an ocean of high turbulence and uncertainty, Indian economy is an island of macroeconomic and financial stability," Das told reporters during the post policy press conference. He said the financial stability, macroeconomic stability and resilience of growth is being witnessed despite two Black Swan events happening one after the other and multiple shocks.
Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty ticked higher for the ninth straight session on Thursday, buoyed by fag-end buying in banking, financial and realty stocks amid encouraging domestic retail inflation data. Weak trends in IT counters and fall in the overnight US equity markets triggered by fresh concerns over recession, however, put a check on market's uptrend. In a largely subdued session, the 30-share BSE Sensex went up marginally by 38.23 points or 0.06 per cent to settle at 60,431.
The criticism that the Reserve Bank of India was behind the curve in hiking interest rate to tame rising inflation is unfair, former RBI Governor D Subbarao said on Wednesday and asserted that it is difficult for any central bank to anticipate the future more accurately. Earlier this month, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the central bank's rate-setting panel, surprised the markets with a 40 basis points hike in repo rate in an off-cycle policy meeting. It was also the first rate hike after August 2018, amid spiralling inflation.
The Reserve Bank is expected to go for another rate hike of 0.40 per cent at the scheduled review of the monetary policy next week, a foreign brokerage said on Friday. The central bank's rate setting panel will follow it up with a 0.35 per cent hike in rates at the next review in August, or make it into a 0.50 per cent hike next week and a 0.25 per cent increase in August, to make the total quantum of rate hikes at 0.75 per cent, the report by Bofa Securities said. On May 4, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked rates by 0.40 per cent, and Governor Shaktikanta Das has already called a rate hike at the forthcoming review as a "no brainer" given the pressure to maintain its core mandate of inflation in the targeted band of under 6 per cent.
Manufacturing activities in India touched a three-month high in March boosted by faster expansions in new orders and output amid demand resilience and easing of cost pressures, according to a monthly survey. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose from 55.3 in February to 56.4 in March, signalling the strongest improvement in operating conditions in 2023 so far. The March PMI data pointed to an improvement in overall operating conditions for the 21st straight month.
RBI said at the current juncture, the all-out effort is to maintain and sustain, with the hope that when life is secure, resources, energy and time can be marshalled to rebuild and revive.
Retail inflation declined to a one-year low of 5.72 per cent in December 2022, mainly due to softening prices of food items, according to official data released on Thursday. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was at 5.88 per cent in November 2022 and 5.66 per cent in December 2021.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday defended the Reserve Bank's handling of the price situation, saying acting prematurely on inflation would have exerted a heavy cost on the economy and citizens. Acknowledging that the inflation target has been missed, Das said the RBI decided to support the economy by not introducing a rate hike in face of a spike in inflation. "We prevented a 'complete collapse of the economy' by keeping rates lower and stayed away from premature tightening," Das said speaking at the annual FIBAC conference of bankers in Mumbai.
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday expectedly left interest rates unchanged and maintained an accommodative stance as the economy faces a renewed threat to growth due to the resurgence of coronavirus cases.
Tata Steel was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, climbing 2.11 per cent, followed by Infosys, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Kotak Bank, M&M and PowerGrid. NSE Nifty jumped 142.05 points to end at 17,605.85.
Retail inflation declined to an 18-month low of 4.7 per cent in April mainly due to falling prices of vegetables, oils and fats, and came closer to Reserve Bank's target of 4 per cent, showed government data released Friday. It was for the second month in a row that Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation remained within the RBI's comfort zone of below 6 per cent. The government has tasked the central bank to ensure retail inflation remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.
With retail inflation witnessing significant uptick in May, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to maintain status quo in its August monetary policy review, according to a report. According to the SBI's research report- Ecowrap, inflation may remain elevated in the coming months due to several global and domestic factors. "We expect a status-quo in August. We believe RBI would still try to find a marriage of convenience of regulatory and developmental measures and monetary policy in August policy," the research report said on Wednesday.
The repo rate has been left unchanged at 4 per cent, Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the decisions taken by the central bank's MPC.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to address the post-budget meeting of the RBI's central board on Monday and highlight key points of the Union Budget 2022-23, including the fiscal consolidation roadmap and high capex plan. It has been a custom that the finance minister addresses the RBI board, consisting of RBI Governor and existing four deputy governors, after the Budget. The meeting has been scheduled for February 14 where she would be addressing the board members and talk about announcements made in the Budget to perk up growth hit by three waves of COVID-19, sources said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday decided to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance, implying rate cuts in the future if need arises to support the economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das has pitched for policy support from all sides -- fiscal, monetary and sectoral -- to nurture recovery of the economy hit by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The dent on economic activity due to the second wave of the pandemic during April-May necessitated continuation of monetary measures to support the process of economic recovery to make it durable, Das had said while participating in the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) earlier in the month. "Overall, the second wave of COVID-19 has altered the near-term outlook, and policy support from all sides - fiscal, monetary and sectoral - is required to nurture recovery and expedite return to normalcy," Das said, as per the minutes of the meeting released on Friday.
Das said that global economic activity has remained fragile and the surge in COVID-19 cases has subdued early signs of revival.
However, it may still not change its stance on the policy rate as inflationary pressures are coming from high commodity prices.
With retail inflation surprising on the upside, the six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to increase the repo rate by 35-50 basis points (bps) in the review scheduled for September 28-30. According to economists, the central bank will continue to focus on bringing inflation down even though economic growth has remained sluggish. Data released by the government on Monday showed that the consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation increased by 7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in August, thus, staying above the upper tolerance limit of the central bank for all the eight months of 2022.
The MPC headed by RBI Governor Urjit Patel said that the recent excise duty cut by the government on petrol and diesel will help contain inflation.
Describing the recent two consecutive spikes in retail inflation beyond the 6 per cent as a 'transitory hump', a Wall Street brokerage on Monday said it expects the RBI to overlook it and unanimously stick to the dovish stance at the forthcoming policy review, even though a further upward revision of its already-revised inflation target is more likely. The Reserve Bank-led monetary policy panel is scheduled to announce the third monetary policy review on August 6, amidst the continuing spike in retail inflation that has breached the 6 per cent upper tolerance level for the past two consecutive months.
The Reserve Bank will go for a "dovish pause" at Wednesday's policy review announcement amid developments such as a rise in inflation, government maintaining the inflation target band and a likely impact on growth due to local lockdowns on rising COVID-19 infections, analysts said on Monday. Economists at American brokerage Bofa Securities said price stability, growth and financial stability will become the prime focus areas for the central bank going forward. "The RBI MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) should deliver another dovish pause on Wednesday," it said. The policy announcement, the first for the fiscal, will come days after the government maintained the RBI's target to ensure inflation to be within 2-6 per cent band for five more years.
Data suggests that households too are expecting inflation to subside, with the three-month-ahead and the one-year-ahead expectations declining by 40 basis points, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday slashed India's growth forecast for 2022-23 (FY23) by 80 basis points to 7.4 per cent, citing less favourable external conditions and rapid policy tightening by the central bank. In its update to the April World Economic Outlook, the IMF said that though a global recession in 2022 was ruled out with a growth estimate of 3.2 per cent, the balance of risks was squarely to the downside, driven by a wide range of factors that could adversely affect the global economic performance. "The risk of recession is particularly prominent in 2023, when in several economies growth is expected to bottom out, household savings accumulated during the pandemic will have declined, and even small shocks could cause economies to stall.
Here are the highlights of the monetary policy announced by RBI governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday.
The Lok Sabha elections in 2024 are not a consideration when it comes to monetary policymaking, said Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das to underscore the central bank's commitment to controlling inflation. "It's not possible for me to comment what we do in the next MPC (Monetary Policy Committee), but one thing I can tell and I would like to make it very clear-that the fact of elections coming up in 2024 is not a factor at all so far as monetary policymaking is concerned. "Monetary policymaking is for checking (and) controlling inflation," Das said at the Business Standard, BFSI Insight Summit.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday kept key repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent in view of rising inflation and faint signs of economic growth amid gradual lifting of coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. The central bank's newly-constituted monetary policy committee (MPC) began its three-day meeting on October 7 and maintained the stance as accommodative. It also kept the reverse repo rate unchanged at 3.35 per cent.
Higher for longer' may be the narrative in the developed markets, but interest rates might not stay high for very long in India, with a section of the market expecting rate cuts to begin this year. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to keep interest rates unchanged at 6.5 per cent in the April review - after hiking the policy repo rate in six previous meetings. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das emphasised that the pause was only for the April policy and that the central bank was ready to act if the situation demanded.
The uncertainty created by the jump in COVID-19 infections and localised lockdowns prompted RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and other members of the rating setting panel MPC to unanimously vote for status quo in interest rates and an accommodative policy stance to support growth, as per minutes of the meeting released on Thursday. "The need of the hour is to effectively secure the economic recovery underway so that it becomes broad-based and durable," the Governor said during the three-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which ended on April 7. The renewed jump in COVID-19 infections in several parts of the country and the associated localised and regional lockdowns add uncertainty to the growth outlook, he observed, as per the minutes of the meeting released by the central bank.
India's services sector output growth touched a three-month high in November as business inflows rose markedly amid accommodative demand conditions, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index rose from 55.1 in October to 56.4 in November, indicating a sharp increase in output that was the quickest in three months even amid higher operating expenses. Survey participants linked the latest expansion to demand strength, successful marketing and a sustained upturn in sales.
Minutes of the MPC meeting show Das felt economy needs more monetary stimulus as inflation outlook remains uncertain.
The Reserve Bank of India, for the second straight time, on Thursday kept its key policy rate unchanged at 5.15 per cent, maintaining its accommodative policy stance as long as it was necessary to revive growth. The central bank retained GDP growth at 5 per cent for 2019-20 and pegged it at 6 per cent for the next fiscal.
Inflation to peak in the current quarter within tolerance band, moderating in the second half of next fiscal, says central bank.
In its scheme of things, tackling inflation now comes ahead of ensuring growth in the world's sixth largest economy, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The rupee depreciated 44 paise and slipped below the 81-mark against the US dollar for the first time in early trade on Friday, weighed down by the strong american currency and risk-off sentiment among investors. Forex traders said escalation of geopolitical risk in Ukraine and rate hikes by the US Fed and Bank of England in a bid to contain inflation sapped risk appetite. Further, the strength of the American currency in the overseas market, a negative trend in domestic equities, and risk-off moods amid escalation of geopolitical risk in Ukraine weighed on the local unit.
'The rising cost of construction, the cost of doing business, high compliance, and inflation/interest rates going up have already reduced returns to single digits.'
The minutes of the December MPC meet reveal members felt the current spike in the headline inflation rate was due to a temporary supply shock on the food front, expected to moderate by the second quarter of 2020-21.
Host of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of India hiked lending rates after the Reserve Bank raised the benchmark interest rate to tame inflation. The hike has been effected in their benchmark rate linked to the repo rate, which increased by half a percentage point to 5.9 per cent. Even financial institutions like mortgage lender HDFC Ltd hiked the lending rate by 50 basis points effective Saturday.
'Pump prices of petrol and diesel have reached historical highs. An unwinding of taxes on petroleum products by both the Centre and the states could ease the cost-push pressures,' the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has said.
