Investors take pause on Indian stocks after six-day rally

Bloomberg

Indian equities dropped on Thursday as investors paused for breath after the longest winning run since November.
The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Index fell 0.9% each as of 12:39 pm in Mumbai, after earlier rising as much as 0.6% each. Both gauges are still trading close to their highest in almost three months — levels seen before the world’s toughest stay-at-home curbs were imposed late March. A global rally in risk assets also lost steam as US dollar recouped some of its recent losses.
“The concern is we’ve rallied too much, too soon so we may see some consolidation,” said Anita Gandhi, investment adviser at Arihant Capital Markets Ltd. in Mumbai. “There are some mixed signals.”
India’s easing of curbs will see malls, restaurants, and places of worship reopening from June 8 as the country attempts to revive an economy that’s headed for its first full-year contraction in more than four decades. The blow from a virtual shutdown of a nation of 1.3 billion people has been so severe that economists are struggling to forecast how long it will take to recover.
Still, India’s services sector activity picked up in May, even as the coronavirus infections have gone past 216,000, according to data published by IHS Markit. Even after a rebound from a low in March, the Sensex is down about 17% for the year, more than double the drop in the regional MSCI Asia Pacific Index.
The rupee fell 0.1% against the dollar, extending Wednesday’s losses. The yield on the most-traded 6.45% 2029 bond was little changed at 6.03%.