Indian shares declined on Thursday, weighed down by losses across most sectors as investors worried about an escalation of the Middle East conflict.
Nifty 50 index was down 1.08% at 25,517.7 points as of 10:21 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex shed about 1.07% to 83,372.98.
The decline in the benchmarks are in line with Asian peers, which are down 1.5%.
Investors across the globe are on tenterhooks as tensions in the Middle East intensified after Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel earlier this week.
“Investors are worried about the Middle East conflict right now as it will have a huge bearing on Indian markets since any rise in oil prices will have an adverse impact on the country, which is an importer of the commodity,” said Raghvendra Nath, managing director at Ladderup Wealth Management.
Twelve of the 13 major sectoral indexes logged losses, with realty and auto indexes set to be top losers by percentage, dropping about 2.6% and 1.7%, respectively.
Among individual stocks, consumer goods firm Dabur lost 5.5% after forecasting its first quarterly revenue decline since 2020.
Most brokerage stocks, such as Motilal Oswal Financial Services and 5Paisa Capital, fell about 1.5% each, while SMC Global lost about 2.3%, days after India’s markets regulator SEBI tightened rules for equity derivatives trading.
Indian shares end flat as IT offsets energy losses
The broader, more domestically-focused small- and mid-caps lost about 0.9% each. Bucking the trend, metals climbed 0.4%, led by around 2% rise each in JSW Steel and Jindal Stainless.
Brokerage Nomura initiated coverage on JSW Steel and Jindal Steel with “buy” ratings, while Morgan Stanley upgraded the two to “overweight” from “equal weight”, citing likely gains from China’s recent stimulus measures and strong domestic demand.
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