Indian shares dropped for a third straight session on Wednesday as banking and automobile shares fell, while regional markets were trading lower tracking overnight losses on Wall Street on doubts over US President Donald Trump's economic policies. Asian stocks fell as doubts on Trump's economic growth agenda prompted investors to dump risky assets in search of safe havens such as government bonds. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.3 percent.
The broader NSE index was down 0.85 percent at 9,043.65 by 0520 GMT, its lowest since March 10, while the benchmark BSE index was 0.81 percent lower at 29,248.05.
"The news from the US was the trigger today, but we were expecting corrective and sideways movement as the market was already in an overbought zone. Nifty is consolidating. Midcap stocks have done good run-up and some profit-booking cannot be ruled out," said Vaishali ?Parekh, research analyst at Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt Ltd.
On the Nifty 50, financial stocks contributed most to the losses, led by index heavyweight ICICI Bank which was down 1.6 percent. The Nifty Finance index declined for a fourth consecutive session. Auto stocks also lost traction with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Tata Motors falling 2 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, to pull down the NSE index. Telecom services provider Bharti Airtel was among the top losers on both the NSE and BSE indices, slipping around 3 percent.
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