Sept WPI inflation surges to 6.46%

Updated: Monday, October 14, 2013, 12:35 [IST]

Inflation for the month of September came in at much higher then expected 6.46%, as against a broad expectation of 6%. Today's reading may raise the prospects of a further repo rate hike by the Reserve Bank of India, later this month.

The primary articles index, which has a weightage of 20% in the index, rose 1.5 percent in comparison to the previous month. The index for food articles rose 0.8 per cent, while the non food articles index showed a jump of 2%.

The index for the fuel group rose by 2.6 percent to 207.5 (provisional) from 202.3 (provisional) for the previous
month due to higher price of light diesel oil (11%), furnace oil (8%), aviation turbine fuel (7%), naphtha (7%),
petrol (6%), lubricants (3%), kerosene and bitumen (3% each), high speed diesel (2%) and lpg (1%).

The inflation number for the month of July has been revised upwards to 5.85 percent from 5.79%.

Today's WPI inflation, which came in significantly higher then expected has raised the prospects of another interest rate hike by the RBI later this month.

The RBI has already raised the repo rate (interest rate) in September and another round of hike cannot be ruled out, given the elevated level of inflation.

The CPI inflation data is also expected later today and analysts expect the CPI inflation to be around the 9.4% mark.

Markets which were trading with significant gains in trade lost ground, following the inflation data. Banking stocks were the worst hit most of the banking stocks trading with losses.

A hike in the repo rate for banks will dent their margins and hence banking stocks reacted to the inflation data.

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