BENGALURU: Indian shares were subdued on Thursday, as a slide in information technology (IT) stocks on weak earnings by Tata Consultancy Services offset support lent by falling oil prices.
The NSE Nifty 50 index was down 0.12% at 19,788.35 as of 10:05 a.m. IST, and the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.12% to 66,391.68.
A 1% decline in the IT index kept markets subdued, despite eight of the 13 Nifty sectoral indexes logging gains.
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India’s top IT company TCS lost as much as 1.77% to an over four-month low on missing second-quarter revenue estimates and flagging persistent weakness in client spending.
While analysts said that strong order book was a positive for TCS, the near-term revenue outlook remained weak.
“The valuation of Indian market is not cheap and investors are waiting on the sidelines to use any downside to increase allocations,” said Mukesh Kochar, national head of wealth at AUM Capital.
Analysts said that besides earnings, domestic and U.S. inflation data due on Thursday and oil prices will be key triggers for the markets in the near term.
Retail inflation likely eased to 5.50%, within the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerance band, according to a Reuters poll.
The weakness in IT stocks offset support lent by a fall in oil prices after a top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia pledged to stabilise the market.
Brent crude futures eased to $85.50 in Asia hours. A decline in oil prices is positive for importers like India, which is the third-biggest importer of the commodity.
Among individual stocks, casino operator Delta Corp jumped 4% after posting higher second-quarter profit on lower tax expenses.
Aster DM Healthcare gained over 5% after a Bloomberg report said that several private equity firms are eying the company’s assets.
Meanwhile, real estate stocks, which had gained 7.26% in three sessions after RBI’s rate pause, lost 0.7%.
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