Indian benchmark indexes were muted on Tuesday, weighed by a drop in information technology stocks,
while elevated U.S. Treasury yields continued to hurt emerging market assets.
The Nifty 50 closed flat at 23,644.8 points, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.14% to 78,139.01. Both the
indexes fell about 0.5% earlier in the session. They gained about 8.5% in 2024, to log a ninth straight
annual rise.
Four of the 13 major sectors declined on the day, with IT, down 1.4%, as the top sectoral loser.
The drop in shares of IT companies, which earn a significant share of their revenue from the U.S., comes amid broader market weakness since the Federal Reserve, earlier this month, signalled fewer rate reductions in 2025 than expected earlier.
That pushed Treasury yields higher, making emerging markets such as India less attractive for foreign institutional investors, which have sold about $2.8 billion of Indian shares over the last 10 sessions.
"High U.S. Treasury yields and a stronger dollar have tempted foreign investors to take at least a part of their money from emerging markets like India to the U.S., weighing on domestic equities," said Krishna Rao, managing director and co-head of equity broking group at JM Financial Services.
The broader, more domestically focussed smallcaps rose 0.7% while midcaps ended flat.
Other Asian markets fell, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index shedding 0.5%.
Among individual stocks, Adani Wilmar declined 6.3% after the Adani group said it would exit the consumer goods joint venture with Singapore's Wilmar in a $2 billion deal.
The maximum per-share value of the deal was a 7.2% discount to the stock's close on Monday, which along with uncertainty over how Wilmar will replace the Adani group, led to the drop.
Drug maker Lupin rose 2% to a record high after buying diabetes drug Huminsulin in India from Eli Lilly.