By Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran
(Reuters) -India’s benchmark indexes fell on Tuesday, dragged by profit booking in heavyweight financials and information technology stocks, and as the broader Asian market slipped on uncertainty over U.S. trade policies.
The Nifty 50 ended 0.70% lower at 24,826.20, while the BSE Sensex fell 0.76% to 81,551.63.
The 50-stock index had risen about 1.6% in the previous two sessions driven by foreign inflows, easing trade tensions between the U.S. and the European Union, and the Reserve Bank of India’s record dividend to the government.
“We are likely seeing some profit booking and liquidity divergence towards the primary market and a couple of large promoter stake sales,” said Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research at SBICAPS Securities.
Three initial public offerings planning to raise 64.68 billion rupees ($757.7 million) are currently open for subscription.
IndiGo lost 2% after the airline’s co-founder sold shares worth $1.36 billion, while Sagility India shed 5% after the health tech firm’s largest shareholder proposed to sell a 15.02% stake.
Ten of the 13 major sectors logged losses. Heavyweight financials and information technology stocks lost 0.64% and 0.75%, respectively.
The broader, small-caps and mid-caps each rose about 0.1%.
MSCI Asia ex-Japan fell 0.4%. [MKTS/GLOB]
To drive the Nifty past the 25,000 resistance level investors will take cues from the U.S. Federal Reserve minutes, India’s March quarter GDP data, due this week, and the RBI’s rate decision next week, analysts said.
Among individual stocks, UltraTech Cement fell 2.3% as concerns over demand due to the early onset of monsoon rains weighed on cement stocks.
Jio Financial Services rose 3.4%, as the company’s joint venture with BlackRock got market regulator’s nod for mutual funds business.
($1 = 85.3670 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Varun H K and Eileen Soreng)
