Political Shakeup, MSCI Rebalance Pull India Stocks From Record

(Bloomberg) -- Indian stocks slipped from a record on political uncertainty for Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the completion of a re-balancing of the MSCI ACWI index.

The S&P BSE Sensex slipped 0.2% to 40,821.30 at the close in Mumbai and the NSE Nifty 50 Index fell 0.3%.

Shares fell after a coalition government led by the BJP collapsed in the western Indian state of Maharashtra after it failed to gain a majority. The South Asian nation’s top court had earlier ordered the party to prove it had enough support to form the state government.

Meanwhile ICICI Bank Ltd. closed at a record, climbing 2.6% to 510.7 rupees after its weightage on the MSCI ACWI index was increased.

Strategist View

“The Maharashtra floor test tomorrow is a short-term risk factor ” said Sameer Kalra, founder at Target Investing in Mumbai, an investment advisor in Mumbai. “The MSCI re-balancing was also completed today, which led to some outflows, ICICI Bank was the only one whose weightage grew.”

The Numbers

• Sixteen of 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by BSE Ltd. fell, led by a gauge of telecom companies
• ICICI Bank Ltd. contributed the most to the index advance with a 2.6% jump and performed the best; Bharti Airtel Ltd. was the biggest drag on the index wit ha 4.3% slump

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To contact the reporter on this story: Ronojoy Mazumdar in Mumbai at rmazumdar7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Margo Towie, Jon Menon

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