Indian shares mostly flat as hawkish Fed weighs

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Indian shares saw a muted opening in early trade on Friday as investors digested a slew of hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials that indicated the central bank was not done with aggressive interest rate hikes yet.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 index were mostly unchanged at 61,751.61 and 18,345.50, respectively, as of 0352 GMT.

Fed officials fired more warning shots on interest rates while rising coronavirus cases in China and liquidity strains in its bond market added to uncertainty. [MKTS/GLOB]

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said late on Thursday that rates might need to hit a range from 5% to 7% to be "sufficiently restrictive" to curb inflation, a blow to investors who had been wagering rates would peak at 5%.

Foreign institutional investors bought a net of 6.18 billion Indian rupees ($75.8 million) worth of equities on Thursday, while domestic investors purchased 4.49 billion rupees of shares, provisional data on the National Stock Exchange showed.

The Nifty IT index was the top sectoral gainer, rising 0.50%.

($1 = 81.5100 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Janane Venkatraman)