(Reuters) – Indian shares are set to open lower on Monday, tracking Asian peers, after an unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs report dampened expectations of early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, while worries over slowing earnings continued to persist.
The GIFT Nifty futures were trading at 23,319 as of 7:59 a.m. IST, indicating that the blue-chip Nifty 50 will open below Friday’s close of 23,431.5.
Both the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex benchmark indexes lost about 2.4% last week, weighed down by worries over a moderation in corporate earnings in the December quarter after lucklustre business updates from a few large-cap companies.
Data released after market hours on Friday showed U.S. jobs growth unexpectedly accelerated in December, lifting U.S. 10-year Treasury yields to 14-month highs and increasing the potential for fewer U.S. rate cuts in 2025, which makes emerging markets, such as India, a less attractive investment.
This prospect of fewer U.S. rate cuts has spurred foreign portfolio investors to sell Indian equities for seven of the eight sessions in January so far, with outflows aggregating to 213.57 billion rupees ($2.5 billion).
Other Asian markets fell on Monday, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index shedding 1.1%. [MKTS/GLOB]
Meanwhile, investors also await domestic consumer price inflation data, due after market hours on Monday. India’s inflation eased to 5.3% in December on moderating food price rises, according to a Reuters poll of economists.
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** Carbon black maker PCBL posts fall in net profit in December quarter
** Life insurance company ICICI Prudential secures relief of 1.75 billion rupees in an income tax dispute
** IT company Infosys accuses rival Cognizant of anti-competitive practices
($1 = 86.1200 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
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