Indian shares open marginally lower as tepid earnings, persistent foreign outflows weigh

Indian shares opened marginally lower on Tuesday, after they snapped a six-session losing streak the previous day, as caution prevailed due to a largely tepid earnings season and persistent foreign selling.

The NSE Nifty 50 shed 0.13% to 24,306 points as of 9:26 a.m. IST, while BSE Sensex lost 0.2% to 79,852.28.

The benchmark Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex indexes rose for the first time in six sessions on Monday, led by upbeat results from ICICI Bank. Eight of the 13 major sectors logged losses on the day.

The broader, more domestically-focused small- and mid-caps were little changed.

Information technology and auto fell 0.5% each and were the top sectoral losers by percentage.

“While markets started the week on a positive note, caution prevails due to the upcoming U.S jobs data, uncertainty over the presidential election, a largely tepid domestic earnings season and heavy foreign outflows,” said Prashanth Tapse, senior vice president of research at Mehta Equities.

The Nifty 50 has dropped about 7.4% from a record high level hit on Sept. 27. Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers of Indian shares for the previous 21 sessions.

They have offloaded domestic equities worth $10.6 billion in October alone, eyeing record monthly foreign outflows.

Among individual stocks, telecom operator Bharti Airtel lost 2% after reporting smaller-than-expected second quarter-profit post market hours on Monday.

Indian shares log worst weekly run in 14 months on foreign outflows, frail earnings

State-owned Indian Oil Corp lost 2% after posting a drop in September-quarter profit.

Federal Bank gained 6.1% after posting a rise in quarterly profit and was the top gainer in the Nifty bank index, which rose 0.2%.