By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian shares fell on Friday, dragged by metals and information technology stocks, and tracking a sell-off in global peers after weaker-than-expected U.S. data sparked concerns of a slowdown in the world’s largest economy.
The NSE Nifty 50 fell 1.08% to 24,740.1 points as of 10:01 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex shed 1.02% to 81,029.82.
Asian markets fell, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index losing 2.3%.
Wall Street equities slid overnight after weak U.S. manufacturing and labour market data sparked fears of a worsening economic outlook.
Investors now await the nonfarm payroll data due later in the day to gauge the health of the U.S. labour market.
Sentiment has turned nervous in the United States on the possibility of slower growth after Thursday’s data, two analysts said.
“The drop in Indian markets shows that we cannot stay decoupled from global markets for long,” Sameet Chavan, head of research at Angel One said.
“This profit booking could continue as momentum indicators signal that markets are near overbought territory.”
The relative strength index of the Nifty 50 index settled above 70 for the last five sessions, indicating that it may be overbought. The benchmarks have been hitting record highs over the last several weeks.
On the day, all the 13 major sectors logged losses.
Metals shed 2.6%, as weak economic data from the U.S. and contraction in industrial production in top consumer China sparked demand concerns. [MET/L]
IT companies, which earn a significant share of their revenue from the U.S., lost 1.6%.
The auto index fell 1.9% with 14 of the 15 constituents declining, as brokerages flagged weakness in the passenger vehicle and the medium-heavy commercial vehicle segments.
The broader, more domestically focussed small- and mid-caps dropped 1.3% each.
Food delivery company Zomato gained about 13% after beating June quarter profit estimates.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
