By Hritam Mukherjee
(Reuters) -Indian shares inched lower on Friday as a drop in IT stocks after bellwether Infosys’s disappointing forecast was nearly offset by an Axis Bank-led rise in financials following the lender’s strong results.
The Nifty 50 index dipped 0.2% to 24,702 points as of 11:23 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.23% to 80,813.
Axis Bank rose about 5% after its quarterly profit topped expectations. That led a 0.5% advance in financial services, which have the heaviest weightage among the 13 major sectors.
On the flip side, Infosys slid about 5%, the most on the Nifty, after its full-year revenue growth forecast fell short of analysts’ expectations.
That suggested a broad-based recovery in global tech spending was yet to take hold and sparked a 2% retreat in IT stocks.
Already motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto had raised worries about local consumer spending after warning festival period sales may fall below expectations. Its shares dropped 1%.
“Infosys’ outlook adds to the overall bleak investor sentiment. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, Bajaj Auto’s sales caution has intensified anxieties about festive spending, while the foreign outflow bleed-out continues,” said Narendra Solanki, head of equity research fundamental at Anand Rathi.
Foreign institutional investors have pulled out $8.4 billion so far in October, already set for the highest monthly outflows since at least 2002. That after assets under custody of foreign portfolio investors topped $1 trillion as of September-end.
Among individual stocks, gold lender Manappuram Finance tanked 18% after the central bank barred one of its units from issuing fresh loans, citing a breach of norms.
The small-caps and mid-caps indexes fell 0.6% and 0.3% respectively. ($1 = 84.0600 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan)
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