Indian shares drop for second day as IT, pharma stocks drag

Tata Consumer Products

01/06/2022 11:37

(Updates to closing levels)
    BENGALURU, June 1 (Reuters) - Indian shares settled lower on
Wednesday, dragged by pharma and technology stocks, while data
showed that the country's economic growth slowed to the lowest
in a year during the March quarter.
    After see-sawing between gains and losses for most of the
session, the NSE Nifty 50 index  .NSEI  ended 0.37% lower at
16,522.75 and the S&P BSE Sensex  .BSESN  finished down 0.33% at
55,381.17. 
    In the previous session, both indexes snapped three straight
sessions of gains as a rally in technology stocks paused and
banking stocks fell.
    "We are moving into a consolidation phase, investors might
not be all that keen to push decisions or put money on the table
ahead of India central bank's monetary policy decision next
week," said Anand James, chief market strategist at Geojit
Financial Services.
    Most major Nifty sub-indexes settled lower, with the IT
 .NIFTYIT  and pharma indexes  .NIPHARM  leading declines to end
down 1.4% and 1.3%, respectively.
    Bajaj Auto  BAJA.NS  dropped 3.7% and was the top percentage
loser on the Nifty 50 index. Early on Wednesday, the automaker
posted a 1% rise in May sales from a year ago. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN2XN11H
    This pushed the Nifty auto  .NIFTYAUTO  sub-index to snap a
four-day rally and close down 0.2%.
    However, slight gains in financial stocks limited losses.
    The Nifty finance index  .NIFTYFIN , bank index  .NSEBANK 
and PSU bank index  .NIFTYPSU , which tracks state-run banks,
closed up between 0.16% and 0.7%.
    On Tuesday, government data showed India's gross domestic
product grew 4.1% year-on-year in January-March, slowed by
weakening consumer demand amid soaring prices.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2XN0U7    
    India's factory activity, meanwhile, expanded at a
better-than-expected pace last month, data on Wednesday
showed. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nZRN004I2D
    The MSCI world equity index  .MIWD00000PUS , which tracks
shares in 50 countries, was flat as investors fretted over
soaring inflation and the hit on global growth from looming
interest rate rises.  MKTS/GLOB 

 (Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by
Shailesh Kuber and Devika Syamnath)
 ((Chandini.M@thomsonreuters.com; +918061822697;))