By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares closed marginally higher on Thursday, after a slide in IT stocks following weak quarterly earnings and a cautious outlook from top IT firm TCS Ltd trimmed gains, amid rising concerns of a recession in the U.S.
The Nifty 50 settled up 0.09% to 17,828, while the S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.06% to 60,431.
Nine of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced. The benchmarks extended gains for the ninth session in a row and their third consecutive week.
Indian markets will be closed on Friday for a local holiday.
The decline in high-weightage IT, which lost over 2%, offset gains in financials, which rose nearly 1%.
Infosys Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd, and HCL Tech Ltd fell more than 2% each, and were the top losers in the Nifty 50 index.
IT stocks fell after TCS flagged concerns of deferred spending and near-term uncertainty in its banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment.
The company reported nearly 15% year-on-year growth in net profit in the March quarter, topping estimates.
Analysts said unexpected weakness in the BFSI segment in the U.S. weighed on TCS’ results.
“Outlook is clouded by client caution driving cuts to discretionary tech spends,” according to JP Morgan.
Infosys will report its fourth-quarter earnings later on Thursday.
“Slowdown is a reality, expect subdued demand outlook on near-term tech spending,” three analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note.
“Recent events in U.S. regional banks have induced greater caution (about) spending.”
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s projection of a mild recession later this year added to concerns about clients’ spending cuts in the IT sector and weighed on sentiment.
Among other stocks, AU Small Finance Bank Ltd surged 17% on Reserve Bank of India’s approval for the reappointment of its managing director and CEO.
($1 = 82.0400 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Janane Venkatraman and Sonia Cheema)
