By Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M
(Reuters) -India’s equity benchmarks fell on Friday, logging a third straight weekly decline, as weak earnings from key financial and IT companies dampened sentiment while global trade uncertainty lingered.
The Nifty 50 fell 0.57% to 24,968.4 points on the day, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.61% to 81,757.73. The Nifty 50 and Sensex lost about 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively, this week.
Private banks led sectoral losses with a nearly 2% weekly drop, followed by heavyweight financials and IT, down 1.1% and 1.5%, respectively.
Axis Bank fell 5.2% on Friday and 6.3% for the week after a surprise profit decline.
India’s No. 3 IT company HCLTech lost 5.5% for the week after it cut its full-year operating margin forecast, dashing hopes of a near-term recovery in tech spending. In contrast, Wipro rose 2.4% on Friday and 3.3% for the week after its earnings beat expectations.
“The earnings season is still in early stages, and results have been mixed so far,” said Manish Goel, founder and managing director at Equentis Wealth Advisory Services.
“Unless we see a big positive surprise against the market consensus of 5% profit growth at the Nifty 50 level, caution will prevail,” Goel said.
The broader, more domestically focussed small-caps and mid-caps declined 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively, on Friday but ended the week higher. The indexes were supported by rising expectations of further central bank policy easing following soft domestic inflation data.
Investors now await progress in trade talks with the U.S. ahead of the August 1 deadline after President Donald Trump said earlier this week that a deal with India is close.
Markets will only take a pivotal direction after the trade negotiations with the U.S. reach a definite conclusion, Equentis’ Goel said.
Meanwhile, other Asian and European markets rose on Friday, as strong U.S. retail sales and labour market data signalled resilience in the world’s largest economy. [MKTS/GLOB]
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
