On the flip side, metals gained with a 1% rise. Twenty-seven of Nifty 50 constituents advanced with Titan Co and Eicher Motors Ltd among top gainers.
Wall Street equities closed lower on Friday, on fears of a longer-than-expected high-rate regime after hawkish comments from key Federal Reserve officials. Asian markets fell, with the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan sliding 0.63%. Investors await India's retail inflation data for January, due today. A Reuters poll of economists showed that India's annual retail inflation rose from a 12-month low in December, but stayed within the 6% upper limit of RBI's tolerance band in January. The uncertainty over the Adani conglomerate added to concerns in domestic markets. "The Adani group saga continues to weigh on investors' minds and hence the sentiment has been negative," said Prashanth Tapse of Mehta Equities.
The group has lost over $100 billion in market value since Jan. 24, when U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the conglomerate of stock manipulation and improper use of tax havens. India's market regulator is probing the group's links to some of the investors in its scrapped $2.5 billion share sale of the flagship Adani Enterprises. ($1 = 82.5250 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman, Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
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