BENGALURU: Indian shares struggled for direction on Monday, paring gains after the benchmark Nifty 50 hit a record high at the open, weighed by a drop in metals on valuation concerns.
The blue-chip index NSE Nifty 50 rose as much as 0.28% to a new record high of 22,440.90, before reversing gains to trade 0.06% lower to 22,363.75.
The BSE Sensex shed 0.06% to 73,759.54, as of 9:50 a.m. IST. Seven of the 13 major sectors logged gains.
Metal stocks dropped 1.1% and capped index gains.
JSW Steel lost 2.25% while Tata Steel shed 2% after CLSA downgraded both stocks to ‘sell’ from ‘outperform’ and cut target prices, citing a sharp rise in valuations for steel stocks in the past 18 months.
“Strong macroeconomic data, continued robust domestic inflows and expected political stability are key factors providing optimism to the investors, but there could be profit booking at record high levels,” said G Chokkalingam, managing director of research at Equinomics Research.
Energy drives Indian shares higher after strong domestic growth data
While the blue-chips rose at the open, the broader, more domestically focussed small- and mid-caps dropped 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively, on rising concerns over excessive fund inflows into the segments.
“The market regulators’ advisory to mutual funds regarding the excessive valuations in small- and mid-cap schemes is likely to restrain the performance of the broader market,” said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Energy index added 0.6%. State-owned NTPC climbed 3%, after the company approved an investment of 171.95 billion rupees for the Singrauli super thermal power project.
Among individual stocks, Moil jumped 4%, after the company’s manganese ore production increased 15% year-on-year in February.
Godrej Properties gained 2% after the company entered agreements to develop a township project in Bengaluru with an estimated booking value of 50 billion rupees.
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