Indian Shares End Mixed; Sensex Slips As IT Stocks Drag

(RTTNews) - Indian shares ended Friday's session mostly higher as a pullback in oil prices and global bond yields helped ease concerns around inflation, India's import bill and earnings.

The U.S. Federal Reserve's first interest-rate hike in three years also instilled confidence in investors regarding the central bank's resolve to bring inflation under control.

Oil prices extended losses for a third straight session, with Brent crude prices falling toward $102 a barrel on hopes of limited supply disruption and renewed diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

Concerns over supply disruptions eased following Saudi Arabia's efforts to reroute crude exports through Oman and restore the East-West pipeline.

The benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex finished marginally lower at 74,294.96, giving up early gains due to heavy selling in the IT sector.

The NSE Nifty index edged up 75.80 points, or 0.33 percent, to 23,346.40 while the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes soared around 1.3 percent each.

The market breadth was strong on the BSE, with 2,713 shares rising while 1,617 shares fell and 218 shares closed unchanged.

Among the prominent gainers, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Power Grid Corp and Adani Ports rallied 2-4 percent.

Information technology stocks underperformed, with Tech Mahindra falling nearly 2 percent and TCS tumbling 4.3 percent on concerns over AI-driven disruption after Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, said that chip sales volume next year will double from this year's levels.

Traders also digested reports suggesting that SK Hynix and Intel are in early talks to produce memory chips together at Intel's idle Ohio complex in the United States.

Tata Group stocks ended broadly lower amid a fresh tussle between Tata Sons and Trusts after the reappointment of N Chandrasekaran as executive chairman for another five years.

Tata Chemicals plummeted 11 percent, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles lost 3.5 percent and Tata Steel dropped 1.7 percent.