Indian shares weighed by financials, rising US bond yields

BENGALURU: Indian shares fell on Wednesday, dragged by financial stocks, as rising US Treasury yields renewed concerns of foreign fund outflows.

The indexes had gained more than 2% in the previous session and were on track to post their second straight monthly gains.

"Every time we go high, we are seeing some profit booking also coming in," said Rusmik Oza, senior vice president at Kotak Securities in Mumbai.

"The valuations are quite high and rising global bond yields will lead to outflow in emerging markets."

The 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 1.776% on Tuesday, its highest since January 2020.

Refinitiv data showed foreign investors purchased $1.51 billion worth of Indian equities in March as of Tuesday, down from $3.54 billion in February, due to higher US bond yields and rising domestic coronavirus cases.

Analysts expect high volatility in stocks due to several portfolio reallocations, with Wednesday being the last trading day of the financial year.

"We had a frenzied rally and some fatigue will also come in. A lot of retail investors were just riding on an upmove. With that phase gone now some of them might move out," Oza said.

The Nifty bank index fell 1.7% and the Nifty financial index dropped 1.9, a day after they surged nearly 2% as a steel conglomerate completed an insolvency process, allowing lenders to recover some bad loans.

HDFC Bank and Housing Development Finance Corp fell about 3% and were top drags to the bluechip Nifty 50 index.

Shares of Spicejet Ltd rose 2.1% after the company signed an agreement with Avenue Capital Group for the financing, acquisition, sale and leaseback of up to 50 aircraft.