(Updates for morning trade)
Indian shares were muted on Thursday, tracking Asian peers, as uncertainty over Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s tenure dampened sentiment, while a drop in Tech Mahindra after a marginal revenue miss.
The Nifty 50 and the BSE Sensex were down 0.2% each at 25,153.4 points and 82,434.4 points, respectively, as of 10:19 a.m. IST.
The broader, more domestically focussed small-caps and mid-caps traded flat.
MSCI’s broadest index for Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan were flat, while the U.S. dollar and Treasury yields fell after President Donald Trump said he was “highly unlikely” to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
Market anxiety over Powell’s tenure and a potential shift in monetary policy could impact the U.S. dollar, influence the interest rate trajectory, and affect capital flows into emerging markets including India.
In tariff-related news, Trump said the U.S. is very close to a trade deal with India, although analysts noted that markets are unlikely to swing sharply on comments around trade deals until there is more clarity.
“A surprise factor that can trigger a rally is a tariff rate much below 20%, say 15% (on India), which the market has not discounted,” said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments.
Meanwhile, Tech Mahindra slipped 1.5% and was the biggest loser on the Nifty 50 and IT index, which fell 0.5%, after it reported a marginally lower-than-expected quarterly revenue.
“Results of IT (companies) continue to disappoint, and this could be a drag on the overall market,” Vijayakumar said.
While IT was the biggest drag on the benchmarks, marginal gains in healthcare, automobile and mining stocks offset the losses.
Among other individual stocks, travel booking platform Ixigo’s parent Le Travenues Technology soared 11% and hit a one-year high after it posted a higher profit.
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Sonia Cheema)
