Indian equity, currency and debt markets are closed on Monday on account of Eid-Ul-Fitr. The commodity markets are also shut. Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended lower on Friday with banks and financial stocks leading the fall after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announcements failed to impress investors.
The
Sensex ended 260.31 points or 0.84 percent lower at 30,672.59, while the Nifty50 fell 67 points or 0.74 percent to settle at 9,039.25. Market breadth was in favour of declines with the advance-decline ratio at 2:3.
The rupee settled at 75.92 to the dollar, while the 10-year benchmark bond yield ended at 5.96 percent.
For the week, Nifty and Sensex lost 1 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, while Nifty Bank shed 8 percent. This was the third consecutive week of declines for the benchmarks.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das Friday came out with a set of measures to alleviate distress in the economy caused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Das announced a 40 basis points
repo rate cut to 4 percent from 4.4 percent earlier. The Monetary Policy Committee held an out-of-cycle review meeting from May 20-22 and the policy stance was maintained 'accommodative' until the growth revived.
“The RBI's surprise move to cut repo rate and other liquidity measures failed to cheer the stock market in another clueless market. Sentiments were also affected by weak trading in other Asian and European markets. Ahead of the weekend, traders were seen squaring off long positions ahead of a long weekend,” said Rahul Sharma, Head of Research, Equity99.
“Friday’s selling was led by banking and NBFC stocks which tumbled after RBI further extended the loan repayment moratorium and cut in GDP projections for the current year. We expect the markets continue to trade in a zig-zag fashion and remain range-bound in the absence of any major clues in the near future,” he added.
First Published: May 25, 2020 8:09 AM IST
