Sensex, Nifty Decline After Powell's Comments

(RTTNews) - Indian shares ended Monday's session modestly lower as the dollar and bond yields rose in international markets amid much uncertainty about the Federal Reserve's monetary path this year.

The dollar hit a two-month high after U.S. data released on Friday showed much stronger than expected job growth in January and an improvement in consumer sentiment, prompting investors to scale back expectations of swift interest-rate cuts.

Further weighing on investors' risk appetite, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made it clear during a "60 Minutes" interview aired on Sunday night that policymakers will wait to see continued progress toward cooler price increases before cutting interest rates.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex ended the session down 354.21 points, or 0.49 percent, at 71,731.42, after staying listless for better part of the day. The broader NSE Nifty index settled 82.10 points, or 0.38 percent, lower at 21,771.70 due to fag-end selling.

UPL plummeted nearly 11 percent on brokerage downgrades post dismal Q3 results. Bharti Airtel tumbled 3.2 percent ahead of its earnings release while Grasim, HDFC Life and Bajaj Finance all fell around 3 percent.

Paytm slumped 10 percent to extend last week's heavy losses.

The company has refuted reports claiming that it may face an investigation from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on charges of money laundering by Paytm Payments Bank.

Among the top performers, Tata Motors jumped 5.8 percent after reporting an over two-fold rise in its December-quarter profit.

Coal India surged 5.1 percent while Cipla, Sun Pharma and BPCL all rose around 3 percent.