By Hritam Mukherjee and Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares were marginally lower on Tuesday, weighed by a fall in top private lender HDFC Bank, which will likely see lower-than-expected inflows because of a staggered adjustment of its weight on a key MSCI emerging market index.
The NSE Nifty 50 index shed 0.23% at 24,288.25, as of 10:31 a.m. IST, and the S&P BSE Sensex inched down 0.23% to 79,456.23.
HDFC Bank, the heaviest stock in the benchmark Nifty 50, fell 2.8% and was its top percentage loser.
MSCI has raised the proportion of HDFC Bank’s shares available for purchase by overseas investors but the changes will come into effect in two stages, in August and in November.
Analysts at Nuvama, who had earlier predicted inflows of $3.2 billion-$4 billion into HDFC Bank after the MSCI revision, now see $1.8 billion in inflows after the first change in August. Details of the second tranche are due later this year.
The drop in HDFC Bank dragged high-weightage financials and banks, which shed 0.55% and 0.3%, respectively.
Oil India, Dixon Technologies and Vodafone Idea gained 2%-3% on inclusion into the MSCI EM index, while Bandhan Bank dropped 2% after being excluded.
Seven of the 10 Adani group companies gained after MSCI lifted restrictions on their shares, staging a recovery from Monday’s losses.
MSCI had halted implementation of updates to weights of Adani group stocks in February 2023.
“The market’s ability to absorb recent negative news including the Hindenburg report is a positive sign, however it appears fragile whenever prices move to a higher range,” said Rajesh Bhosale, an equity analyst at Angel One.
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
