Indian stocks Nifty, Sansex dropped april 4 2012

Indonesia stock info - Indian stocks Nifty, Sansex dropped april 4 2012 ; Indian stocks dropped for the first time in four days after Federal Reserve minutes showed central bankers saw no need for more U.S. stimulus, and on concern quarterly earnings at Indian companies may slow.

State Bank of India, the nation’s biggest lender, declined 1.2 percent. Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (LT), the largest engineering company, retreated 1.3 percent.

The BSE India Sensitive Index (SENSEX), or Sensex, retreated 0.5 percent to 17,509.47 at 9:23 a.m. in Mumbai. The 30-stock gauge is up 13 percent this year. The markets are closed tomorrow and April 6 for public holidays.

Minutes released yesterday from the March 13 Fed policy meeting showed it was holding off on increasing monetary accommodation unless economic growth faltered or prices rose at a rate slower than its 2 percent target. India’s economy has slowed for four straight quarters and output has decelerated as Europe’s debt crisis curbs demand for Asian exports, threatening profit growth. A total of 47 percent of Sensex companies missed earnings forecasts in the December quarter, compared with 40 percent three months earlier.

“On the western side of the planet, in the U.S. and to some extent in Latin America, you find that earnings are doing much better than they are in places like Asia, and India in particular,” Arjuna Mahendran, the Singapore-based head of Asia investment strategy at HSBC Private Bank, which oversees about $499 billion, said in a Bloomberg UTV interview yesterday.

The Sensex has risen 14 percent this year as foreign funds have bought a net $9.1 billion of domestic shares, a record for the period, even as company-profit growth slows, interest rates remain at a three-year high, oil prices jump and the government struggles to tackle a widening fiscal gap.

The 30-stock measure trades at 13.5 times future earnings, compared with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index’s 10.7 times.

The S&P CNX Nifty (NIFTY) Index on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. decreased 0.7 percent to 5,355.30. The BSE 200 Index (BSE200) fell 0.4 percent to 2,180.37.

Foreigners bought a net 13 billion rupees ($254 million) of local stocks on March 30 and April 2, raising their investment this year to 452.5 billion rupees, according to the nation’s market regulator.

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