By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares reversed intraday gains and logged losses on Thursday, as a handful of downbeat quarterly earnings reports overshadowed optimism from favourable U.S. inflation data.
The Nifty 50 was closed 0.10% lower at 18,297, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.06% to 61,904.52.
Eleven of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced, with high weightage financials gaining 0.33%.
While the markets closed lower on Thursday, the benchmark Nifty 50 has added over 1% so far this week, gaining 5.5% since March 31, 2023.
Shares of Adani Enterprises rose nearly 5% after the company’s board said it will consider a fundraise.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have purchased shares worth 176.41 billion rupees ($2.16 billion) over the last ten sessions, according to provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.
“The appreciating rupee is one of the reasons why FIIs have turned buyers. Also, FIIs have changed their strategy of ‘sell India, buy China’ which they pursued in January and February,” Vijayakumar added.
Pharma lost over 1%, dragged by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., which lost nearly 7% after reporting a less-than-expected rise in March-quarter consolidated profit on Wednesday.
Larsen & Toubro Ltd fell over 5% after analysts flagged weak core profit margins in the March quarter.
Both Larsen & Toubro and Dr Reddy’s were among the top Nifty 50 losers.
Global equities advanced after data showed that U.S. consumer price inflation slowed to its lowest in two years in April, signalling that the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes have managed to tackle high inflation. [MKTS/GLOB]
The probability of a rate hike at the next Fed meeting in June slid to 9.6% as of 8:00 a.m. IST from 21.9% ahead of the data release. [FEDWATCH]
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K, Janane Venkatraman and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
