Mumbai, Aug 6 (IANS) Following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision on Wednesday to maintain the repo rate at 5.50 per cent, the benchmark index Nifty 50 experienced a slight decline, falling below the 24,600 resistance level.

The Nifty 50 was trading at 24,569 as of 10.54 am, after an intraday decline of 0.33 per cent, while the Sensex stood at 80,473, down 0.29 per cent. Prior to the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision, Nifty and Sensex were down 0.08 per cent and 0.07 per cent, respectively.

Apart from the monetary policy decision, the overarching influence on the market will be US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements, according to experts.

The Nifty IT index extended its losses to a 1.57 per cent decline during the morning hours of trading. Nifty Pharma lost 1.26 per cent and Nifty Realty declined 2.26 per cent.

Among the IT stocks, Coforge was the biggest loser down 3.49 per cent. All other major IT stocks lost 1 to 2 per cent.

The RBI monetary policy committee (MPC) unanimously decided on August 6 to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.5 per cent while sticking to the “neutral” monetary policy stance.

A neutral stance requires neither stimulation nor curbs on liquidity as it strikes a fine balance between controlling inflation without hurting growth.

The RBI Governor said that inflation had come down to much lower levels there was still some volatility in food prices, especially vegetables. However, core inflation had remained steady at around 4 per cent.

The Central Bank also retained its forecast for India’s GDP growth at 6.5 per cent for FY 2025-26, despite global uncertainties, as it expects strong rural demand on the back of a good monsoon and robust government expenditure on big ticket infrastructure projects.

It pegged India’s CPI inflation at 3.1 per cent for 2025-26 as the steady progress of the monsoon and robust kharif sowing are expected to keep food prices in check.

—IANS

aar/na