BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares ended at four-week lows on Thursday, as IT stocks lost ground for an eighth straight session, tracking a risk-off mood in global markets after the U.S. Federal Reserve flagged likely rate hikes in March.
The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index closed 0.97% lower at 17,110.15, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 1% to 57,276.94. Both indexes fell as much as 2% on Thursday but recovered on firmer bank stocks amid the expiry of monthly derivatives contracts.
The top three losers on the Nifty 50 were technology stocks, leading to its IT sub-index shedding 3.5% to a five-month low and extending 2022 losses to 13.5%.
Indian shares suffered deep losses over the past week, erasing all the gains clocked this year, as prospects of tighter U.S. monetary policy and tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine triggered heavy foreign selling.
European and Asian shares fell on Thursday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank plans to steadily clamp down on credit this year to combat soaring inflation. [MKTS/GLOB]
In Mumbai trading, lenders helped with a late recovery as Nifty’s PSU Bank index pulled back from being in the red to settle 5.1% higher.
Canara Bank added 8.8% as the state-owned lender reported a 116% surge in third-quarter profit.
The Nifty volatility index, which rose as much as 11.8% in the session, ended 1.5% lower at 21.02 points.
“The upcoming Indian budget session will be positive for the economy, no doubt, but we’ll have to see if it can overturn our markets,” said Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services.
Among individual stocks, TV18 Broadcast jumped 20% after reports said media scion James Murdoch and former Star & Disney India chairman Uday Shankar plan to take a 40% stake in a joint venture between the Reliance Industries-owned company and ViacomCBS.
(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)
