The Indian equity benchmark indices traded higher around noon on Thursday as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained status quo on key policy rates and announced certain relief measures for real estate and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sectors.

Share Market Live

NSE

In its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy and the last one for FY20, the central bank kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.15 percent due to higher inflation. The RBI maintained an ‘accommodative’ stance over sluggish economic growth. It also revised inflation forecast but kept GDP growth projection for FY20 unchanged.

At 1:05 pm, the Sensex was trading at 41,349.77, up 207.11 points or 0.50 percent and the Nifty was trading at 12,149.65, up 60.50 points or 0.50 percent.

Barring Nifty IT, all other sectoral indices were trading in the green.

Nifty Midcap100 and Nifty Smallcap100 gained 0.5 and 0.6 percent respectively.

The Nifty PSU Bank index remained the best-performing index of the day gaining 2.6 percent supported by the gains in Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, UCO Bank, Indian Bank and Punjab National Bank. All stocks from the index were trading in the green except Indian Overseas Bank.

ZEEL, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India, YES Bank, Bajaj Finance were the top gainers on Nifty50 while Tata Motors, Cipla, Infosys, Titan Company and Hindalco remained top losers.

Real estate and Housing Finance companies surged after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) provided an extension of the timeline for commercial real estate projects. It said that the extension of Date of Commencement of Commercial Operations (DCCO) of project loans for commercial real estate will be permitted to be extended by a year without downgrading asset classification.

Shares of Avenue Supermarts, the operator of DMart supermarket chain, rallied 4.95 percent and hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,360.75 on Thursday after the company launched a qualified institutional placement (QIP) to raise up to Rs 4,000 crore.

Shares of Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee) rose more than 5 percent on Thursday after the company issued a clarification regarding a media report that said that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had ordered an inspection of the firm’s books. The stock has lost nearly 12 percent on this news.

Globally, stocks extended their recovery on Thursday, cheered by record closes in Wall Street benchmarks following encouraging economic data, and after China announced a cut in tariffs on some imported goods from the United States.

Catch all the latest updates from the stock market here.