India Stocks: Financials, IT weigh on Indian shares; Ultratech caps losses

India Cements

27/06/2024 05:14

(Updates as of 9:28 a.m. IST)
       BENGALURU, June 26 (Reuters) - Indian shares opened
marginally lower on Thursday, weighed down by a drop in
financials and information technology stocks, but a rise in
Ultratech Cement  ULTC.NS  after it said it would buy a stake in
India Cements  ICMN.NS , capped losses.
    The NSE Nifty 50  .NSEI  inched down 0.2% to 23,819.7
points, while the S&P BSE Sensex lost 0.22% to 78,502.66 points,
as of 9:37 a.m. IST.
    Financials-linked indexes such as financial services
 .NIFTYFIN , private sector banks  .NIFPVTBNK , banks  .NSEBANK 
and state-owned lenders  .NIFTYPSU  were down about 0.2% each,
in early trade.
    Financials led a recent rally, lifting the benchmarks to
record closing highs in the last two sessions.   
    Information technology  .NIFTYIT  stocks also weighed on the
benchmarks, losing 0.6%, ahead of a key U.S. inflation reading
on Friday, which could provide more clues on the timing of U.S.
rate cuts.    
        A 5% rise in Nifty 50 constituent Ultratech Cement
 ULTC.NS  capped losses on the benchmark after the company 
    said
     it would buy a 23% stake in India Cements  ICMN.NS  for
18.85 billion rupees ($226 million).
  
        India Cements surged 6%.
  
        
  

    ($1 = 83.5050 Indian rupees)
  

 (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Bharath Rajeswaran in
Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Sonia Cheema
)
 ((bharath.rajeswaran@thomsonreuters.com; +91 9769003463;))