Indian shares slip as Middle East conflict rattles nerves

BENGALURU, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Indian shares fell on Monday amid declines in global markets and rise in oil prices due to nervousness around escalating violence in the Middle East, while investors awaited the quarterly results of Indias top private lender HDFC Bank.

The NSE Nifty 50 index (.NSEI) was down 0.20% at 19,711.85 as of 9:45 a.m. IST, and the S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) fell 0.25% to 66,117.20.

Financial services (.NIFTYFIN) and banks (.NSEBANK) led losses on the Niftys major sectoral indexes, falling over 0.5% each. Ten of the 13 indexes were down.

Meanwhile, the more domestically focussed small- (.NIFSMCP100) and mid-caps (.NIFMDCP100) outperformed the blue-chips in early trade, rising 0.3% and 0.1% respectively, helped by sustained retail inflows.

“We remain concerned about the domestic equity markets in the short term,” said G Chokkalingam, founder and managing director of Equinomics Research.

“If Israel war leads to tensions across the Middle East, then oil prices may further shoot up, aggravating pressures for Indian economy and markets.”

Global stocks fell while safe-haven dollar and gold firmed on Monday, as investors nervously watched for whether escalating violence in Gaza would cause the conflict to spread beyond Israel and Hamas.

Brent crude futures climbed above $90 per barrel in Asia hours. Higher oil prices are a negative for net importers of the commodity, like India.

Among individual stocks, D-mart operator Avenue Supermarts (AVEU.NS) lost as much as 4.14% after reporting a drop in September quarter profit.

Delta Corp (DELT.NS) lost over 9% after its unit received a goods and services tax (GST) notice for payment of shortfall of 63.84 billion rupees.

Indias top private lender HDFC Bank (HDBK.NS) fell 1% ahead of its second-quarter results, due later in the day.

Newly-listed Jio Financial Services (JIOF.NS) was flat ahead of its first quarterly results since debuting in August.