By Kashish Tandon
(Reuters) -India’s benchmark indexes fell on Friday, following a six-session rally, on declines in IT and financials after cautious investors awaited Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole symposium for rate cut cues.
The Nifty 50 fell 0.6% to 24,932 points and the BSE Sensex lost 0.6% to 81,517 as of 10:30 a.m. IST.
The two gained 2.4% and 2.2%, respectively, in the last six sessions on hopes of a consumption demand boost from revisions in the goods and services tax (GST) and S&P’s sovereign rating upgrade.
Thirteen of the 16 major sectors logged losses at the open, led by heavyweight financials’ 0.9% decline.
Shares of IT companies, which get a significant chunk of their revenue from the U.S., were down 0.6%, further weighing on benchmarks.
IT stocks had gained 3% in the last three sessions.
Investors will look for signals in Powell’s speech, due later today, to determine if the U.S. central bank will trim interest rates by 25 basis points as expected in September. However, markets pricing in a rate cut pulled back slightly following the release of minutes from the Fed’s July meeting.
“Weakness in IT stocks is mostly as expectations of a September rate cut have come down,” said Aishvarya Dadheech, founder of Fident Asset Management.
Caution around U.S. tariffs on Indian goods effective August 27 and uncertainty over Russia–Ukraine peace talks also contributed to the declines.
Among individual stocks, Hero MotoCorp lost 2% after consumer goods firm Hindustan Unilever named the two-wheeler maker’s former boss as its financial chief.
Texmaco Rail gained 2.4% on winning an order worth 1 billion rupees ($11.4 million).
Mazagon Dock slipped 1% after J.P. Morgan cut its price target on the stock.
($1 = 87.4350 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy and Janane Venkatraman)
