Indian shares fall as financials weigh; PNB Housing Finance drops
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BENGALURU - Indian shares fell on Monday, weighed down by heavyweight financial stocks, while shares of housing loans provider PNB Housing Finance dropped after a regulatory hold on a proposed capital raise.
The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 index fell 0.69% to 15,574 and the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.74% to 51,954.34 by 0355 GMT. Both the indexes on Friday posted their first weekly fall in five, after the U.S. central bank's hawkish turn last week.
The U.S. Federal Reserve's surprise shift also weighed on broader Asian markets on Monday, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan falling 1% in early trading.
In Mumbai trading, PNB Housing Finance fell 5% to hit its lower circuit limit after India's markets regulator asked the company to put on hold a share allocation to a clutch of investors led by private equity firm Carlyle Group.
Shares of investment banking company Centrum Capital gained more than 16% after India's central bank approved the takeover by the company's unit of the troubled Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank.
Heavyweight financial stocks were the biggest drags on the Nifty 50, with the Nifty Bank Index falling 1.09% and setting it on track for a fourth straight session of declines.
(Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
