Interest-rate sensitive banking and realty stocks were in demand, rising by up to 5.5 per cent, after RBI maintained status quo in the bi-monthly monetary policy today.
Among banking stocks, Federal Bank surged 5.49 per cent, State Bank of India climbed 5.40 per cent and ICICI Bank rose by 4.31 per cent on BSE.
Bank of Baroda gained 1.61 per cent, Punjab National Bank (0.91 per cent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (0.68 per cent).
Consequently, the BSE bank index went up by 1.63 per cent to close at 20,536.01.
Realty stocks were also on the buyers' radar, with Indiabulls Real Estate gaining 4.14 per cent, Godrej Properties rising 2.14 per cent, DLF (2 per cent), Oberoi Realty (1.66 per cent) and Unitech (1.30 per cent).
The realty index rose by 1.70 per cent to settle at 1,447.67.
"Since the RBI policy meet was in-line with expectation, the market has moved ahead along the momentum which is looking promising," Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd Head of Research, Vinod Nair said.
Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan today left borrowing costs unchanged but signalled a prospect of interest rate cut later this year if strong monsoon rains dampen inflation.
In the second bi-monthly monetary policy meeting of this fiscal, RBI kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.50 per cent and the cash reserve requirement at 4 per cent.
