Indian shares fell for the second consecutive session and ended down 0.1 percent in choppy trade on Wednesday, taking cues from global markets and as investors held back from taking major positions ahead of upcoming quarterly results. Financials led the losses, with lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank falling 1.2 and 2 percent, respectively. The outlook for the sector has been cloudy on worries over hardening interest rates impacting growth.
"The cues from the global markets have not been very positive today. The market has been consolidating in a narrow band in the past three-four sessions and is clearly looking for fresh triggers from the quarterly results and the monsoon to go up," said Neeraj Dewan, director Quantum Securities. Global shares edged lower on Wednesday as investors remained wary of a slowdown in the global economy, while Moody's downgrade of Portugal's credit rating to "junk" status escalated fears on the eurozone debt crisis.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed down 0.09 percent at 18,726.97 points, with 18 of its components losing. It rose as much as 0.42 percent in the day. Foreign funds have pumped in nearly $2 billion in the eight sessions to July 4, as they ramped up their interest in riskier emerging market assets, helping the main index rack up gains.
The main index has recovered 8 percent since a June 20 low of 17,314 points, but is still down nearly 9 percent so far in 2011. "Going forward the market looks positive and the rally should continue unless there is some major disappointment from the domestic results front or even the monsoon," said Dewan.
The 50-share NSE index ended down 0.12 percent at 5,625.45 points. In the broader market, 718 losers were ahead of 701 gainers on a volume of more than 529 million shares. Idea Cellular ended up 1.95 percent a day after it said a tribunal stayed the country's telecoms ministry from enforcing fines worth 2.5 billion rupees ($56.3 million) over alleged violation of telecoms rules in its take-over of a smaller rival. Software firms, which get a majority of their revenues from the United States and Europe, had traded weaker as investors turned cautious ahead of the US payrolls report due on Friday and after Moody's downgrade of Portugal. Infosys edged down 0.09 percent and Wipro ended 0.74 percent lower, while Tata Consultancy reversed early losses to end 0.28 percent higher.