Indian shares tumble on declines in tech firms

India’s blue-chip stock indexes saw hefty losses for a third straight session on Thursday as inflation and policy tightening fears continued to pressure technology stocks, while heavyweight Bajaj Finserv dropped after reporting a lower quarterly profit.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index (.NSEI) ended 1.01 per cent lower at 17,757 and the S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) fell 1.06 per cent to 59,464.62, both registering their lowest closing level in two weeks.

The indexes have fallen nearly 4 per cent from the three-month peaks touched earlier this week, with analysts saying that a correction was due ahead of India’s federal budget.

The Nifty and Sensex are still up around 8 per cent from the lows seen in December and around 4.5 per cent off the record highs touched in October.

Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), India’s most valuable company, fell 1.8 per cent ahead of its quarterly results due late on Friday.

IT majors Infosys (INFY.NS) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS) tumbled 2.3 per cent each, dragging the Nifty IT index (.NIFTYIT) to its lowest level in a month, after the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell into a correction territory on Wednesday.

Nifty component Bajaj Finserv (BJFS.NS), a holding company for financial services businesses including non-bank lender Bajaj Finance (BJFN.NS), sank 4.5 per cent to a more than two-week low after its quarterly net profit slipped.

Automaker Bajaj Auto (BAJA.NS) slid 3.7 per cent on reporting a bigger-than-expected fall in profit.