Indian benchmark indexes ended lower on Friday as IT firm Infosys and private bank Axis Bank both declined after their earnings.
The Nifty 50 fell 0.35% to 23,229.1 points as of 10:05 a.m. IST; the BSE Sensex declined 0.45% to 76,699.08.
Axis Bank Ltd. sank 5.2% as the lender’s quarterly net income fell short of analysts’ estimates because of muted credit expansion and an increase in provisions for bad debts.
Infosys dropped 5.4%. It marginally exceeded quarterly revenue expectations, but Morgan Stanley said that was due to a greater proportion of third-party products in its pipeline, which would cause a downgrade in terms of quality of performance.
Infosys pulled the IT index down by 2.6 percent. Investors will be mindful of how Infosys’s performance is tracked by the IT pack.
Markets are mixed up, to say the least; just like this sentence, they do not make a lot of sense of logic. Despite benchmark indices recovering ground over the last three sessions, fear and worries over earning estimates deceleration have not left markets’ sentiment,” said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice president of retail equities research at SMC Global Securities.
“In particular, today’s selling is believed to be motivated by the idea of ITM that while the earlier expectations of return were premised on the high PE ratios, today’s investors think that the revenue growth in Infosys is out of order with its pricey valuations.”
Infosys and Axis Bank were the most among the Nifty 50 scripts.
By far the biggest gainer was Reliance Industries, the second most heavily weighted stock on the index, which rose 2.2% after it reported Q3 profits higher than market expectations, buoyed by demand for its retail and telecoms divisions.
Other shares were down as well, with LTIMindtree declining by 3.5% after the IT firm recorded a lower December-quarter profit.
Shares of dairy products manufacturing company Hatsun Agro Products declined 4.5% after the company said that its third-quarter profit fell.