Nifty falls below 200-DMA for first time in nearly 15 months

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Nifty fell below its 200-day moving average for the first time in nearly 15 months, led by declines in blue chips on continued worries about retrospective taxes and lower-than-expected January-March earnings so far.

Foreign portfolio investors have sold Indian shares worth at least $656.6 million in the last eight sessions, excluding Daiichi Sankyo Co's $3.2 billion share sale in Sun Pharmaceutical Industries , which was heavily subscribed by overseas investors, Reuters calculation showed.

India's tax department will rule within a month on alternative tax claims made against foreign investment funds that are covered by tax treaties, the finance ministry said on Friday, as the government moves to defuse its latest tax row with investors.

"Earnings so far have been disappointing, we are hoping the manufacturing sector would support with better results in the coming days," said G. Chokkalingam, founder of Equinomics, a Mumbai-based research and fund advisory firm.

The government has no choice but to heed to foreign investors' demand on taxes, he added.

The Nifty declined as much as 1.01 percent to break its 200-day moving average of 8,254.17 for the first time since Feb. 6, 2014.

The benchmark Sensex fell as much as 0.8 percent.

Both the indexes were heading towards their lowest close since Jan. 8, 2015 and their eighth session of losses in nine.

Housing Development Finance Corp fell 3.6 percent, while State Bank of India was down 2 percent.

Infosys lost 1.3 percent following a near 6 percent slump on Friday after its January-March dollar revenue growth and outlook lagged expectations.

($1 = 63.6700 rupees)

(Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)