Jan 12 (Reuters) - Indian shares reversed early losses on Monday as concerns over trade talks with the U.S. eased after the new Washington ambassador to New Delhi said the two countries will discuss trade issues on January 13.
The Nifty 50 rose 0.2% to 25,734.7, while the Sensex added 0.14% to 83,693.35 as of 1:33 p.m. IST.
Both the indexes were down 0.8% during the session, before staging a reversal.
The rebound was helped by comments from Washington's newly appointed ambassador to New Delhi, Sergio Gor, who said India and the U.S. will continue to actively engage on trade and the next call between the two sides is scheduled for Tuesday.
"Positive statement by U.S. ambassador on continuation of talks on India-U.S. trade deal and reiteration of the importance of India as a trade partner have led to short covering during the day," said Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research at SBICAPS Securities.
Nine of the 16 major sectors logged losses. Small-caps and mid-caps declined 1% and 0.6%, respectively.
High-weight financials led the market recovery, rising 0.5%. They were down 0.4% before the U.S. ambassador's comments.
Among stocks, Lemon Tree gained 3% after the hotel chain announced an investment of 9.6 billion rupees by private equity group Warburg Pincus in its unit.
Index heavyweight Reliance, which fell 1.7% to a 10-week low during the session, pared most of its losses and traded 0.3% lower.
The oil-to-telecom conglomerate lost 7.4% last week after the company said it is not expecting any Russian crude oil deliveries in January on tariff worries.
Investors await inflation data, scheduled for release later in the day, for further economic cues. India's consumer inflation likely rose for a second straight month in December to 1.5%, driven by a broad-based pickup in food prices and fading favourable base effects, a Reuters poll showed.
(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Rashmi Aich and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
By Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M
