After budget dismay, investors look towards RBI monetary policy

Feb 2, 2020
Mumbai: After venting its disappointment over the Union Budget, the Indian equity market is now looking forward to the RBI’s forthcoming monetary policy announcement, which will be the central bank’s first one of 2020.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), after the bi-monthly meeting of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Thursday, February 6, will announce its decision on its key lending rates – repo rate and the reverse repo.

A cut in the repo, or its short-term lending rate for commercial banks, would bring cheers to the market as it would eventually result in lower interest rates.

However, in the way the central bank maintained status quo at its last MPC meeting in December, it again hold the rates, especially with inflation rising significantly, according to analysts.

Market experts feel that after the 1,000-point slump on the Sensex and the 300 point slump on the Nifty50 on Saturday because the Budget could not live up to investors’ expectations, on Monday too, the indices may take a beating, but would eventually stabilise later in the week and move upwards.

“It is a disappointment completely because we all were hoping for (abolishing of) LTCG but it didn’t happen,” said Rahul Sharma, Business Head of Equity99.

“Monday may be another day of decline, but in another 3-4 days the market will get stable. The China market would also open after that the shutdown due to spread of coronavirus,” he added.

Analysts also said that the new optional income tax regime announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, although it comes with lower tax rates, would dissuade people from investing in tax saving instruments such as mutual funds and insurance, among others. Stocks of mutual funds, asset management companies and insurance companies eroded significantly on Saturday.

Monthly sales numbers of automobile companies for January, corporate earnings and India PMI January manufacturing data and PMI services would also be keenly observed by the investors. The Nikkei Purchasing Managers’ Index for the manufacturing sector is scheduled to be released on Monday and that for the services sector would be out the day after.

Along with the domestic factors, global cues too are likely play their role in the market.

Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities said that both the Caixin China Manufacturing PMI and the Markit US Manufacturing PMI for January will be announced on Monday, February 3.

On the technical front, Jasani said: “With the Nifty breaking the trend reversal levels of 11,832, the intermediate trend is now down.”

The Nifty could head towards the next major supports of 11,490 if the immediate supports of 11,633 are broken. Any pullback rallies could find resistance at 11,845, he added.

On Saturday, the Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), closed at 11,661.85, lower by 300.25 points, or 2.51 per cent, on its previous close.

The Sensex settled at 39,735.53, lower by 987.96 points, or 2.43 per cent on its previous close of 40,723.49. IANS