(Reuters) -India’s equity benchmarks fell in early trade on Friday, with broad-based losses led by financial stocks, as Axis Bank dropped following its quarterly profit miss.
The Nifty 50 was down 0.39% at 25,013.7 points, while the BSE Sensex lost 0.41% to 81,921.03, as of 10:10 a.m. IST.
Twelve of the 13 major sectors were trading lower, with the heavily weighted financials and private banks losing 0.5% and 1.1%, respectively.
Axis Bank lost 4%, set for its worst day in six months, after a surprise quarterly profit drop due to increased bad loans from a one-time industry benchmarking exercise, making it the top loser in the Nifty 50 and financial stocks.
Meanwhile, MSCI’s broadest index for Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan rose 0.7% after solid retail sales data and labour market activity in the U.S. indicated resilience in the world’s largest economy.
Back home, the broader small-caps and mid-caps were down 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.
“The initial set of earnings has largely been muted and that is showing in the market reaction,” said Arun Malhotra, fund manager at CapGrow Capital.
The Nifty 50 is down 0.5% so far this week, while the Sensex is down 0.7%. The key indexes are on course for their third consecutive weekly losses.
Malhotra said the investors are anticipating a strong second half for corporate earnings, and that is helping cap the losses.
The IT index was flat with 3% gains in Wipro offset by LTIMindtree’s 2% losses after both companies reported their first-quarter results.
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
