Bengaluru-Indian shares eased on Friday from record highs hit earlier this week, dragged by top private lender HDFC Bank after it reported a sequential decline in loans in the June quarter.
The NSE Nifty 50 was down 0.23% at 24,246.05 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex shed 0.39% to 79,743.33 points as of 10:58 a.m. IST.
Including the session’s drop, the benchmarks are on course to log gains for a fifth week, the longest winning streak in 2024. They hit record highs and logged closing all-time highs thrice this week.
HDFC Bank, the heaviest-weighted stock in the benchmarks, lost 4.2% and dragged financial, private bank and bank indexes down about 1% each.
The bank said after market close on Thursday its gross advances declined 0.8% in the June quarter while deposits were flat, both sequentially.
Eight of the 13 major sectors logged gains, on the day.
The broader small-caps and mid-caps were up 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively, outperforming the benchmarks.
Quarterly results will be crucial to sustain the momentum in markets, especially in the small-caps and mid-caps, according to analysts.
“Even though valuations are elevated, a disappointing quarter for IT or banking will not cause a major correction. For the small-caps and mid-caps, even a slight disappointment in earnings will a trigger sharp fall,” said Sreeram Ramdas, vice president at Green Portfolio.
Among individual stocks, Ahluwalia Contracts jumped 15% to a record high on a 5.7-billion-rupee (about $68 million) order win.
Shilpa Medicare gained 10% after positive clinical results for a kidney disease drug.
Raymond climbed 6.2% after approving the demerger of its real estate arm, while Ircon International rose 3.4% after its joint venture secured a 7.51-billion-rupee order order from Rail Vikas Nigam.
The two stocks were among the top five gainers in the small-cap index.
($1 = 83.4875 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Janane Venkatraman)