(Reuters) – Indian shares opened lower in early trade on Thursday, weighed down by losses across most sectors as investors fretted about an escalation in the Middle East conflict.
The Nifty 50 index was down 0.97% at 25,548.4 points as of 9:24 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex shed about 1% to 83,456.
Twelve of the 13 major sectoral indexes declined at the open, with realty and auto stocks leading the losses.
The decline in the benchmarks are in-line with Asian peers, which dropped 1.5% on the day.
Investors across the globe are on tenterhooks as tensions in the Middle East amplified after Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel earlier this week.
“Domestic markets are likely to witness high selling pressure due to intensified fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East as it could lead to potential supply disruptions of oil, a key commodity imported by India,” said analysts at Centrum Institutional Equities.
Among individual stocks, consumer goods firm Dabur lost 6% after it forecast its first quarterly revenue decline since 2020.
Most brokerage stocks, such as Motilal Oswal Financial Services and 5Paisa Capital, fell about 2% each, while Geojit Financial and SMC Global lost about 1% each after India’s markets regulator tightened rules for equity derivatives trading.
($1 = 83.9490 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy and Sonia Cheema)
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