By Vivek Kumar M
Indian shares struggled for direction in early trade on Thursday, after three consecutive sessions of losses, as financials and information technology stocks offset losses in other sectors amid a lack of major triggers.
The Nifty 50 NSE:NIFTY was up 0.05% at 25,829 points and the BSE Sensex BSE:SENSEX was flat at 84,567.1, as of 10:30 a.m. IST.
Ten of the 16 major sectors traded lower. The broader mid-caps NSE:CNXMIDCAP and small-caps NSE:CNXSMALLCAP were little changed.
The market is struggling for direction due to a lack of major triggers, while a U.S.-India trade deal remains elusive, analysts said.
"We sense that the market will struggle for direction for the next 2-3 weeks as there aren't many triggers," said Pankaj Pandey, head of retail research at Mumbai-based ICICI Securities.
The benchmark indexes have fallen about 0.9% over the last three sessions on worries about foreign outflows and the rupee's slide to record lows.
However, foreign investors snapped an eight-session selling streak on Wednesday, net buying shares worth 11.72 billion rupees ($129.7 million), according to provisional data.
While Wednesday's inflows were positive, they were provisional, and it remains to be seen if the trend persists, two analysts said.
India's largest IT company, Tata Consultancy Services NSE:TCS, rose 0.7% after it outlined a strategy to become the world's largest artificial intelligence-led tech services firm. The Nifty IT index was up 0.4%.
HDFC Asset Management Company NSE:HDFCAMC and Nippon Life India Asset Management NSE:NAM_INDIA jumped about 5% each after the capital markets regulator eased mutual fund fee rules. Shares of other asset management companies and brokerages also rose.
Among other stocks, Hero MotoCorp NSE:HEROMOTOCO dropped 2.7% after Jefferies downgraded it to "Underperform" from "Hold" after its market share dropped.
Tata Motors NSE:TMCV jumped 2.1% after J.P.Morgan initiated coverage on the commercial vehicles maker, with an "Overweight" rating.
($1 = 90.3350 Indian rupees)