Financials and IT weigh on Indian shares
Updates at 10:45 a.m. IST
By Kashish Tandon
Dec 19 (Reuters) -Indian shares inched loweron Friday, weighed down by ITand financials, as investors remained jittery aboutthe Federal Reserve's projection of fewer rate cuts next year, which has spurred anexodus of foreign funds.
The Nifty 50 .NSEI was down 0.1%at 23,928.60 asof 10:45 a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex .BSESN shed 0.2%to 79,078.69.
Both benchmarks have logged weekly losses of over3% so far. The indexes are heading for their first weekly decline in five.
The Fed this week delivereda quarter-pointrate cut but forecast two reductions in 2025, half of what policymakers had anticipated, dampeningforeign investors' appetite for Indian equities.
They offloaded 122.31 billion rupees ($1.44 billion)of stocks this week untilThursday, but are still net buyers in December after being net sellers for two straight months.
U.S. rate cuts tend to help emerging markets assets, such as Indian equities, as they boost foreign inflows.
In Mumbai, heavyweightfinancials .NIFTYFIN dropped 0.3%,with Axis Bank AXBK.NS sliding 2.2%.
Domestic IT firms .NIFTYIT, which earn a chunk of their revenue from the U.S. and are sensitive to the country'sinterest rates, fell 0.2%,giving up early gains after peer AccentureACN.N beat quarterly revenue and profit estimates.
"Even though Accenture's upbeat results gave an initial boost to tech stocks, Fed's hawkish rate cut outlook has hurt sentiment and foreign investment inflows are still negative," said Anita Gandhi, founder and head of institution at Arihant Capital Markets.
Meanwhile, pharma stocks .NIPHARM, which earn most of their revenue from exports, climbed 0.3% andwere set for a weekly gain of 3%.
The Indian rupee INR=IN hit an all-time low of 85.10 on Friday onpersistent dollar strength, making it cheaper for other countries to import drugs from India.
Among individual stocks, battery maker Amara Raja AMAR.NS gained as much as 5% after Hyundai Motor India HYUN.NS said it would equip its domestic cars with the company's absorbent glass mat battery technology.
($1 = 85.0860 Indian rupees)
Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Sonia Cheema
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