WATCH LIVE | RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ Address & Analysis Of MPC Meet OutcomeRBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ comments are being closely tracked, for any change in language that may hint at a shift in the current easing bias. Watch it LIVE on Moneycontrol here:
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das begins begins first MPC policy for FY23
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: Quick recap ahead of the MPC Live by Guv Shaktikanta Das
— RBI Guv’s comments will be closely tracked, for any change in language that may hint at a shift in the current easing bias
— For the past 10 meetings, the MPC had not revised the repo rate, it was last cut in May 2020.
— CPI is at 6.07% in February as against 6.01% in January 2022
— ADB forecasts monetary policy in India will remain accommodative for quite some time
— RBI’s MPC will meet six times in FY23. The next bi-monthly monetary policy will be held during June 6-8.
Market LIVE Updates: HDFC likely to have sold part stake in Bandhan Bank: Source
Shares of Bandhan Bank Ltd recorded a series of block deals on Friday with around 49.7 million shares or 3 percent stake in the bank changing hands in bunched trades, Bloomberg reported. Details of the buyers and sellers were not available.
The stock opened nearly 1 percent lower after the huge block deal but soon recovered and was trading 1 percent higher at Rs 318 a share on BSE.
CNBC Awaaz reported that HDFC Ltd is likely to sell around 50 million shares via bulk deal. As of December quarter, HDFC Ltd held 9.89 percent stake in the bank. Read full here
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: Here’s what India’s top executives expect from the RBI MPC
— Corporate India is ‘cautiously optimistic’, says Uday Kotak (Read here)
— The RBI should change the stance to neutral, with inflation broadening out in India: Nomura’s Sonal Varma (Read here)
— India may clock 7.4% GDP growth in FY23; RBI likely to hike rates by 50-75 bps: FICCI survey (Read here)
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: Suvodeep Rakshit, Senior Economist, Kotak Institutional Equities
The RBI MPC will have a tough choice in terms of weighing the still uneven domestic recovery and strong inflationary pressures which have intensified since the last policy meeting. While the RBI’s inflation forecast for FY2023 will need to be revised up, it is unlikely that they will react to it immediately.
We expect the RBI to sound hakwkish so as to telegraph their intent to stem sustained inflationary risks and set up the next couple of policies for change in stance to neutral followed by repo rate hikes.
While there is a chance that the RBI hikes reverse repo rate in the April policy, markets are unlikely to be much affected since effective rate is much higher that the reverse repo rate due to the VRRR operations.
The RBI is likely to continue to signal its intent to support the government borrowing program though refrain from any explicit measures. For the April policy, we expect the RBI to start telegraphing its intent by being more concerned on the inflation outlook while keeping the stance and repo rate unchanged.
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: What measures are economist expecting for unemployment?
The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s monthly data revealed that the overall unemployment rate in India was 8.1 percent in February and fell to 7.6 percent in March. On April 2, the ratio dropped to 7.5 percent, with the urban unemployment rate at 8.5 percent and rural at 7.1 percent.
Abhirup Sarkar, a retired professor of economics who worked at the Indian Statistical Institute, said although the overall unemployment rate was falling, it was still high for a “poor” country like India.
“Poor people, particularly in rural areas, cannot afford to remain unemployed, for which they are taking up any job that comes their way,” he said.
D-Street Buzz: Rate sensitive stocks in focus ahead of RBI monetary policy announcement; banks, auto, realty in green
— The Indian stock market has opened in the green ahead of the RBI policy with Sensex up 231.65 points or 0.39 percent at 59266.60, and the Nifty adding 66 points or 0.37 percent at 17705.50.
— S&P BSE Bankex was trading in the green led by Federal Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank which added 0.5-1 percent each.
— On the other hand, the auto index added half a percent with the top gainers being TVS Motor, Ashok Leyland, MRF and Eicher Motors while Escorts, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp are under pressure.
— From the realty space, Sobha jumped over 3 percent while Prestige Estates, Brigade Enterprises and Sunteck Realty also traded in the green. However, Oberoi Realty shed over 3 percent while Indiabulls Real Estate was down a percent.
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director at Knight Frank India on MPC expectation
Since the pandemic, the RBI has continued to maintain an accommodative stance prioritising a sustained economic growth recovery. Currently, India’s key growth indicators are at a nascent stage of recovery and there is still a slack in the economy.
The escalating inflation in the economy arising from global commodity price rise and its transmission to the consumer prices would further add downward pressure to domestic growth trajectory. Thus, amidst the inflationary pressure and growth uncertainty, in our view the RBI is likely to keep the key policy rate unchanged in its April 2022 review.
We reckon that the real estate industry has seen a remarkable improvement mainly on account of low interest rates and hence hope that any policy change action is nuanced and gradual allowing prospective buyers to recalibrate their property purchase decisions without much disruption.
In Pics | Experts give their verdict on RBI policy rates at CNBC-TV18 Citizen’s MPC Poll
On the CNBC-TV18’s Citizen’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), experts gave their verdict on the key policy rates that they expect in the Reserve Bank of India’s MPC meeting on April 8.
RBI Monetary Policy Committee LIVE Updates: What measures are economist expecting for liquidity?
RBI has sold a net $20 billion since mid-January and $19 billion in the January-March quarter of FY22. The FY22 net liquidity addition because of forex purchases is around Rs 1 lakh crore.
”RBI has been tightening its liquidity stance, which is getting reflected in our financial conditions index — that significantly tightened from where it was post COVID-19,” said Samiran Chakraborty, India chief economist at Citibank, in an interview with CNBC-TV18. RBI has been steadily reducing its balance sheet size from October, he added. On the scope of a government securities acquisition programme (G-SAP) announcement, Chakraborty is not hopeful it will happen in the upcoming MPC meeting.
”Unlike last year, this year the scope for a G-SAP announcement appears to be more limited, and it would be more of a verbal comfort this time, rather than an explicit G-SAP. But if the RBI announces some OMO for April, the market would get an indication or even some comfort out of it,” said Chakraborty.
Market LIVE Updates: Indices flat amid volatility ahead of RBI policy outcome
— Indian indices opened on positive note on April 8 with Nifty above 17,700, before quickly flattening on volatility ahead of RBI policy outcome
— At 09:16 IST, the Sensex was up 219.99 points or 0.37% at 59254.94, and the Nifty was up 76.60 points or 0.43% at 17716.10. About 1677 shares have advanced, 297 shares declined, and 53 shares are unchanged.
— Coal India, BPCL, Tata Consumer Products, IOC and UltraTech Cement were among major gainers on the Nifty, while losers were HDFC, Cipla, M&M, Nestle and HDFC Bank.
— Motilal Oswal bets on these banking names for an upside of up to 46% (Read here)
