By Bharath Rajeswaran and Chris Thomas
(Reuters) -India’s benchmark indexes settled flat on Monday after eight sessions of declines, as gains in heavyweights HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries offset weakness due to muted corporate earnings and global trade uncertainty.
The Nifty 50 added 0.13% to 22,959.5, while the BSE Sensex was up 0.08% at 75,996.86.
Both the benchmarks logged their longest losing streak in two years on Friday.
They had dropped 0.8% each during Monday’s session before erasing losses in the final hour. The volatility index spiked for the sixth session in a row to 15.72, a two-week closing high.
Markets could continue to remain muted due to a combination of factors such as slowing earnings, elevated corporate valuations and concerns over U.S. tariffs, said Seshadri Sen, head of research at Emkay Global.
HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries, the heaviest stocks on the Nifty 50, rose 1.33% and 0.63% on the day, helping the benchmarks recover from intraday losses.
Large caps are likely to remain resilient due to their valuations falling below the 10-year average after the recent drop in markets, analysts said.
The broader smallcaps closed flat, while midcaps gained 0.4%.
On Friday, the small-cap index ended more than 20% below its record closing high on December 11, confirming a bear market.
Even with the sharp decline, small and midcaps are still trading above their historical average valuations, making them vulnerable to further selling pressure, said Rohit Murarka, business head of Kotak Cherry at Kotak Alternate Asset Managers.
Information technology, the second heaviest sub-index on the benchmarks, fell 0.6%, with eight of its 10 constituents in the red.
The auto index lost 0.5%, dragged down by a 3.8% drop in Mahindra & Mahindra. The stock has fallen 13.4% since a record peak on Feb. 10.
UBS on Monday said the booking numbers for the firm’s new electric vehicles fell short of expectations.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Savio D’Souza, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Sonia Cheema)
