By Bharath Rajeswaran and Kashish Tandon
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares were muted on Wednesday, caught up in the Asia-wide weakness on rising concerns that the Federal Reserve may delay lowering interest rates and as consumer stocks declined.
The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index was little changed at 22,451.6 as of 10:40 a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.02% to 73,893.
“The overnight fall in U.S. markets has triggered a sell-off in Asian equities, with Indian benchmarks also following suit,” said Prashant Tapse, senior vice president of research at Mehta Equities.
Asian shares tracked Wall Street lower as U.S. labour market data fanned worries the Fed could delay rate cuts. Investors still anticipate rate cuts to start in June but a recent run on strong economic data is dampening those hopes. [MKTS/GLOB]
On the day, eight of the 13 major sectors logged losses.
Consumer stocks dropped 1.1%, on worries over earnings growth in the sector.
Nestle India and Britannia Industries dropped 2.6% and 1.8%, respectively, the most on the Nifty 50.
Nuvama Institutional Equities expects the weakness in rural demand to weigh the profitability of consumer companies.
Realty stocks, which gained 14.5% in the last eight sessions, declined 1.25%.
Ultratech Cement gained 1.5% to a near two-month-high after announcing a $3.89 billion capex plan.
The latest Nifty 50 entrant Shriram Finance added 3% and was the top gainer on the index after media reports said Warburg Pincus was a frontrunner to buy the company’s housing finance unit.
The weakness was partially countered by a 1% rise in the heavyweight IT sector. CLSA upgraded key constituents TCS, HCLTech to “underperform” from “sell” on the scope for sequential earnings growth in the March quarter.
The brokerage kept Infosys at “outperform”. TCS, HCLTech and Infosys rose between 0.5% and 1.8%.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
