Bloomberg/Mumbai

Indian equities fell for a fourth day this week, with the benchmark gauge capping a weekly loss, as Wipro and Gail India declined after their earnings reports.
Wipro, the third-biggest software maker, tumbled the most in three months. Gail, a natural-gas supplier, dropped the most in two weeks. Reliance Industries, owner of the world’s largest refining complex, fell 1.9% before its results. TVS Motor Co slumped the most in seven weeks and Crompton Greaves tumbled 5% after the companies posted results that trailed analysts’ forecasts.
The S&P BSE Sensex lost 0.9% to 28,112.31 at the close yesterday. The measure dropped 1.4% from a three-month high on Wednesday as results from some of India’s biggest companies disappointed investors and protests by opposition parties threatened the passage of key economic bills in parliament.
“Investors are taking some money off the table as growth in company earnings has not been as per expectations,” Aneesh Srivastava, who manages $720mn as chief investment officer at IDBI Federal Life Insurance Co, said by phone. “The logjam in parliament is threatening the government’s reforms agenda.”
Seven of the 10 Sensex companies that have posted earnings for the June quarter have matched or beaten estimates. Around 40% of them beat or matched forecasts in the March quarter, versus 47% in the December quarter and 67% in the July to September period, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Parliament was adjourned for a fourth day yesterday as the opposition demanded resignations from members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on graft allegations. The disruption comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to pass bills needed to implement by April a national goods-and-services tax, one of India’s biggest reform proposals in decades.
Wipro tumbled 3.8%, ending a four-day advance. The company posted net income of Rs21.9bn ($342mn), matching the Rs22bn estimated by analysts. Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, Wipro’s larger peers, previously had reported earnings that beat forecasts.
The stock was cut to hold from accumulate at IDBI Capital Market Services. “We believe that it would be challenging for Wipro to get back to industry growth rate,” analyst Urmil Shah wrote in a report.
The Sensex is valued at 15.7 times its projected 12-month profits, compared with a multiple of 11.3 for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. Global funds bought a net $48mn of local shares on Thursday, July 23, taking the year’s inflows to $7.5bn.
Meanwhile the rupee weakened to 64.0425 a dollar in Mumbai, according to prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg. It dropped 0.4% yesterday. One-month implied volatility, a gauge of expected swings used to price options, jumped 77 basis points this week to 5.65%.