By Rashesh Shah, Chairman and CEO, Edelweiss Group

 “RBI’s stance was more or less on expected line, although we were hoping for a 50bps rate cut. The central bank expects inflation to inch higher, and has downgraded its growth forecast – not a very good sign of things to come. In this regard monsoon becomes extremely important, and government may need to take steps to ensure that food inflation does not rise even if the monsoon fails. The critical need of the hour on the policy front is a revival in public investment to boost demand.

On the market front, we expect markets to remain range bound and be driven by earnings growth from here on. The good news however is that retail inflows have increased and we are seeing an uptick in financial savings in equities. This should protect the downside for the markets.”