By Bharath Rajeswaran and Hritam Mukherjee
(Reuters) -Indian shares reversed course after gaining in early trade on Tuesday, weighed down by dull earnings and sustained foreign selling, while the country’s No. 2 carmaker Hyundai Motor India fell on debut trade amid broad-based profit booking.
The NSE Nifty 50 fell 0.27% to 24,714.15 points as of 10:53 a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.2% to 80,992.9.
Both the benchmarks gained about 0.4% each in the first hour of trade before surrendering gains, as broad-based profit booking continued.
Nine of the 13 major sectoral indexes declined. Thirty-nine Nifty 50 stocks logged losses.
The broader, more domestically-focussed small-caps mid-caps fell 2% and 1%, respectively, underperforming the benchmark indexes.
“Amid moderating earnings and foreign selling, the underperformance of the broader market is the real pain point of the market and as long as this trend continues, any intraday bounce will be short-lived,” said Aditya Gaggar, director of Progressive Shares.
Among individual stocks, Hyundai Motor India debuted on the NSE at a discount of 1.3% over its issue price of 1,960 rupees. The stock was down about 4%.
The $3.3 billion initial public offering was oversubscribed by more than two times last week. Nomura and Macquarie started coverage of the company ahead of its debut, forecasting up to 26% potential gains over the next 12 months.
City Union Bank gained 13% after posting rise in quarterly profit, while the Jana Small Finance Bank shed 9% after reporting a drop in net profit and a sequential deterioration in asset quality in the September quarter.
Domestic equities have witnessed profit taking since hitting record highs on Sept. 27, with the Nifty shedding 6% from the all-time high levels.
While FIIs were net sellers for 16 sessions, domestic investors remained buyers for 20 session in a row till Monday, cushioning foreign outflows and capping some of the benchmark losses.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy)
