The markets have been lacklustre in the past one hour. The banking and realty space has been exerting pressure on the benchmark indices, while a rebound on the steel counters has been acting as a foil. The Sensex is now down 52 points at 17925 and the Nifty is at 5387, down 12 points.
Meanwhile, food inflation has eased to 12.47% for the week ended July 10 from 12.81% in the previous week.
The rate sensitives have declined on fears of a interest rate hike by the central bank at its quarterly monetary policy review next Tuesday. Kotak Bank has weakended by 2.2% at Rs 767 and ICICI Bank has shed 1.4% at Rs 890 on the NSE. And in the realty space, Unitech has softened by 1.2% at Rs 83 and DLF has shed 0.9% at Rs 391.
Analysts expect another 25 basis points rate hike to manage the inflation expectations. The RBI had hiked the repo and reverse repo rates by 25 basis points to 5.5% and 4% respectively on July 2.
On the other hand, Cairn has hardened by 2.1% at Rs 320 to emerge as the tiop gainer on the NSE. Ambuja Cement has strengthened by 2% at Rs 114 and Siemens has added 1.8% at Rs 727. And the steel space has rebounded from the lows of the day. Sterlite has gained 1.1% at Rs 175 and Tata Steel has is at Rs 536, up 1%.
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