BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares opened flat on Tuesday, with traders expecting marginal moves ahead of a likely interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve a day later.
The Nifty 50 index was up 0.02% at 25,385 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex was little changed at 82,977.51, as of 9:25 a.m. IST.
Both the benchmarks had hit record highs on Monday, underpinned by metal stocks.
Nine of the 13 major sectors declined on the day. The broader, more domestically focussed small- and mid-caps were little changed.
Consumer stocks, which dropped 1.4% over the last two sessions, gained 0.7% on the day, offsetting broad-based losses.
“Investors remain cautiously optimistic ahead of the Fed’s policy decision on Wednesday, which could influence the short-term trends in domestic equities,” said Vikram Kasat, head of advisory at PL Capital, Prabhudas Lilladher.
The odds of a 50 basis-point rate cut rose to 67% from 50%, after media reports revived the prospect of more aggressive easing.
The rise in domestic equities is expected to be driven primarily by foreign institutional investors (FII) buying after the anticipated Fed rate cut, Kasat said.
India’s benchmark indexes are likely to remain little changed ahead of the Fed’s likely rate cut, two traders said.
Among individual stocks, Ola Electric gained 4% after BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a “buy” rating.
Panacea Biotech gained 5% after reaching an agreement with Sanofi India to settle a marketing dispute over alleged patent infringement.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Sonia Cheema)
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