(Corrects paragraph 1 to clarify only Nifty 50 fell for the fourth straight session, and not both benchmarks)
By Hritam Mukherjee
(Reuters) -India’s benchmark index NSE Nifty 50 fell for the fourth straight session on Tuesday, dragged down by losses in Britannia after it missed quarterly profit expectations and on persistent foreign selling.
The Nifty 50 was down 1.07% at 23,883.45 points as of 3:30 p.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex fell 1.03% to 78,675.18.
The benchmarks opened the session higher before swinging between gains and losses.
The MSCI India index, meanwhile, was down more than 10% from its Sept. 27 peak, which confirms the index is in a correction due to continuous outflows from Indian equities.
“Negative surprises from the disappointing second-quarter earnings continue to keep markets on edge. That, combined with persistent foreign outflows, has dampened sentiment of participants,” said Ajit Mishra, senior vice president of research at Religare Broking.
The Nifty has shed 9.1% from its record high on Sept. 27. Foreign investors have pulled out nearly $14 billion from domestic stocks since the start of October.
“We expect the foreign sell-off to persist till the end of 2024,” said Aishvarya Dadheech, founder and CEO of Fident Asset Management.
On the day, eleven of the 13 major sectors retreated.
Biscuit-maker Britannia dropped 7.5%, the most on the Nifty, after missing second-quarter profit estimates.
HDFC Bank – the heaviest stock on the Nifty – shed 2.7%.
Hyundai India ended 1% lower after the country’s No.2 carmaker by market share reported a lower quarterly profit.
The broader, more domestically-focussed small- and mid-caps shed 1.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Meanwhile, India’s annual retail inflation in October accelerated to 6.21% from 5.49% in the previous month, government data released on Tuesday showed.
A Reuters poll of 45 economists had projected retail inflation at 5.81%.
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Savio D’Souza and Sonia Cheema)
