India Stocks: Indian shares muted ahead of key earnings; IT drops after recent rally

National Aluminium

16/01/2024 04:30

(Updated at 9:57 a.m. IST)
    By Bharath Rajeswaran
       BENGALURU, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Indian shares were muted
on Tuesday, weighed by a pullback in information technology
stocks after a recent rally, and tracking Asian peers ahead of
key economic data from China.
    The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50  .NSEI  shed 0.01% to 22,094.55
points, while the S&P BSE Sensex  .BSESN  lost 0.03% to
73,310.01, as of 9:57 a.m. IST.
    IT stocks  .NIFTYIT  took a breather, shedding 0.90%, after
jumping 7.1% in the last two sessions on the back of
better-than-expected results from the top four software
companies.
    HCLTech  HCLT.NS , Wipro  WIPR.NS , Tech Mahindra  TEML.NS ,
and LTIMindtree  LTIM.NS  were the top four Nifty 50 losers,
dropping between 1% and 2.5%.
    Financials  .NIFTYFIN  were muted, ahead of the results of
top private lender and the highest weighted stock in Nifty 50 -
HDFC Bank  HDBK.NS , due later in the day.
        The benchmarks Nifty 50 and Sensex breached 22,000 and
73,000 levels, respectively, for the first time on Monday.
    The Nifty 50 had gained 2.72% in the previous five sessions
and hit new all-time highs in the last two.
    "The rally from now on will not be smooth and sharp
corrections are likely since valuations are high," said VK
Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial
Services.
    Analysts expect earnings season to influence the market's
trajectory over the next two weeks ahead of the central
government's budget, which is due on Feb. 1.
    Among individual stocks, National Aluminium Company
 NALU.NS  and Hindustan Copper  HCPR.NS  climbed 4.6% and 3.2%,
respectively, after a state-owned joint venture KABIL signed an
agreement with Argentina's CAMYEN SE for lithium exploration and
mining.
    Hospital chain Aster DM Healthcare  ATRD.NS  surged 12.4% to
a record high after announcing plans to consider dividend of 110
rupees-120 rupees per share to shareholders from its Gulf
business demerger.
    Asian markets fell ahead of quarterly gross domestic product
data from China, due on Wednesday.  MKTS/GLOB 
        
  
        
  

 (Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by
Eileen Soreng, Janane Venkatraman and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
 ((bharath.rajeswaran@thomsonreuters.com; +91 9769003463;))