Indian shares suffer worst week since late November

Indian shares on Friday logged their biggest weekly drop since late November as losses in technology and financial stocks outweighed the boost from consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever’s positive earnings.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index fell 0.79% to 17,617.15 and the S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.72% to 59,037.18. The indices had earlier declined as much as 1.5% to their lowest since early January.

They posted a weekly loss of about 3.5% each, having fallen for four straight sessions on heavy selling from foreign investors.

Asian and European peers, as well as U.S. stock futures were weaker as concerns over inflation and the Federal Reserve’s policy tightening weighed on sentiment.

However, Saurabh Mukherjea, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers, said the drop was not unusual amid economic recovery and that he was not too concerned about the correction.

“We are getting strong economic recovery globally, and naturally that is fuelling inflation, also because COVID-19 has created supply side disruptions.

“That will invariably lead to rate hikes, which signals that the first one-third of an economic recovery is behind us.” Reliance Industries closed flat ahead of its quarterly results.