Nifty, Sensex little changed; HDFC Bank rises

By Tanvi Mehta

(Reuters) - Indian shares retreated from early gains to rise marginally on Monday, tracking upbeat mood in global markets, even as macro concerns continued to weigh on domestic investors.

Asian equity markets pared early losses as Chinese stocks swung higher for a second session and helped offset geopolitical concerns over Saudi Arabia, Italy and Brexit.

Indian markets have been battered by a series of issues, including higher crude prices, depreciating rupee and recent defaults at a major non-banking financial company (NBFC). Liquidity has also been facing a crunch, adding to woes.

"Sentiment remains weak. Markets do open positively with a gap up, but pessimism over crude, rupee and the NBFC sector remains... People are afraid of what can come after IL&FS, given the problems in builder community and tightness in money market," said Saurabh Jain, assistant vice-president-research at SMC Global Securities.

Market is also seeing some sectoral rotation, Jain added.

The broader NSE Nifty was up 0.13 percent at 10,316.65 as of 0527 GMT, after rising one percent in the first few minutes of trade. The benchmark BSE Sensex was 0.20 percent higher at 34,382.60.

Shares of HDFC Bank rose over two percent after the private-sector lender posted a record quarterly profit on Saturday.

Other big private sector lenders ICICI Bank and Yes Bank are set to report their quarterly results later this week amid concerns over their top management.

Nifty Financial Services index rose as much as 1.6 percent, after falling for the previous two sessions.

Higher oil prices pulled down some oil and gas companies' stocks. Bharat Petroleum Corp and Indian Oil Corp fell 3.6 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively. Jet Airways and InterGlobe Aviation Ltd also dropped.

Some NBFCs continued their downtrend, with Dewan Housing Finance down 2.4 percent but Bajaj Finance Ltd gained over two percent.

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)