By Bharath Rajeswaran and Kashish Tandon
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian stocks ended little changed on Wednesday, as a rise in information technology shares helped the benchmark indexes buck the weakness in their Asian peers brought on by rising fears of delayed U.S. rate cuts.
The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index settled 0.08% lower at 22,434.65, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.04% to 73,876.82.
Asian markets fell about 1%, while European markets were mixed after strong U.S. economic data — including on the labour market and manufacturing — forced investors to temper their expectations that the Federal Reserve would start cutting rates in June. [MKTS/GLOB]
However, the Indian market is in a sweet spot and is likely to duck any major selling pressure as domestic inflows are cushioning any foreign outflows, said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president of research, retail equities at SMC Global Securities.
On the day, eight of the 13 major sectors logged gains.
IT stocks rose 0.73%, helped by CLSA upgrading key constituents including TCS, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra. Those stocks rose 0.4%-1.7%.
Shriram Finance added 3.67%, the most on the Nifty 50, after media reports said Warburg Pincus was a frontrunner to buy the company’s housing finance unit.
In the third spot was Divi’s Labs, which gained 1.74% after BofA double upgraded the drugmaker’s stock to “buy” due to an improved earnings outlook and attractive valuations.
Among the laggards were consumer stocks, which dropped 0.43% on worries over earnings growth in the sector. Nestle India fell 2.6% and was the top Nifty 50 loser.
Nuvama Institutional Equities said it expects weak rural demand to weigh on the profitability of consumer companies.
Realty stocks, which gained 14.5% in the last eight sessions, declined 2.58%.
Adani Power jumped an exchange-allowed maximum of 5% for the third straight session, bucking the flat-to-lower movement in the other six main Adani group stocks.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
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