India’s benchmark stock index fell the most in three weeks yesterday. Reliance Industries Ltd, the nation’s most valuable company, led the decline as investors speculated its quarterly profit growth will slow amid delays in increasing natural gas output.
Reliance Industries lost 3.1% to Rs1,021.25, the most in almost two months. Higher gas output from the largest Indian field may be behind schedule, two people with knowledge of the plan said yesterday, when the company posted growth in its first-quarter net income of 32% from a year earlier.
The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index, or Sensex, fell 120.24, or 0.7%, to 17,957.37, its steepest decline since July 7. The S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange lost 0.6% to 5,397.55. The BSE 200 Index dropped 0.4% to 2,287.41.
The rupee fell from near a one- week high on speculation local companies stepped up imports to take advantage of a decline in global commodity prices, boosting demand for foreign exchange.
The currency declined 0.2% to 46.765 per dollar as of the 5pm close in Mumbai yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It on Tuesday strengthened 0.8%, the most in five weeks, and touched a one-week high of 46.64 as the central bank raised its benchmark reverse-repurchase rate by half a percentage point to 4.5%. All 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a quarter-point increase.
“The rupee has been pulled under by some commodity-related dollar demand, particularly driven by gold imports,” said Sudarshan Bhatt, chief currency trader at state-owned Corp Bank. “The weak trend in stocks isn’t helping either.”
