By Sethuraman N R
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian shares fell on Monday, weighed by losses in metals, banks and auto companies, on renewed fears of spike in inflation on the back of surge in crude prices amid lingering concerns over global growth.
The NSE Nifty 50 index fell 1.2% to 16,887.35 and the S&P BSE Sensex was down 1.1% at 56,788.81.
The metals index fell 3%, while the auto index dropped 2% and the bank index dropped lost 1.6%.
Eicher Motors was the biggest loser in Nifty 50 index, falling 5.7%.
Adani Group stocks were among the top losers, with Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Green Energy, Adani Ports, Adani Wilmar, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission falling between 4% and 9%.
“A few things like crude prices moving higher are coming in as negatives. These are keeping markets a little volatile,” said A.K. Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital.
Global oil prices rose $4 per barrel on Monday, as OPEC+ considers cutting output by more than 1 million barrels a day, its biggest reduction since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A rise in global oil prices is likely to affect inflation domestically, as India meets majority of its oil needs through imports. India’s inflation is already elevated above the central bank’s tolerance band.
“The fact that defensives like pharma are gaining, clearly shows that the risk appetite is not there and people are looking for safe haven sectors,” said Ajit Mishra, vice president – research, Religare Broking.
The pharma index gained 1.1%, lone sectoral gainer among the Nifty sub indexes.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors remained net sellers last week, having sold 15.65 billion Indian rupees ($192 million) worth of equities on Friday, as per provisional data available with the National Stock Exchange.
Separately, shares of Oil & Natural Gas rose over 4% after the government raised prices of locally produced gas and cut a windfall tax on domestically produced crude oil.
($1 = 81.5090 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Neha Arora)
