BENGALURU, June 12 (Reuters) - Indian shares held firm on Monday as investors awaited directions from key central bank meetings in a data-heavy week, starting with the domestic retail inflation reading later in the day.
The blue-chip Nifty 50 index was up 0.17% at 18,595 as of 10:23 a.m. IST, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.15% to 62,719.91.
Twelve of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced, with information technology (IT) rising 1%. The IT index had lost nearly 2% in the past two sessions. Realty stocks also added over 1%.
The midcap index mirrored its larger peers, rising 0.3%, while the smallcap stocks added 0.6%.
Investors await domestic retail inflation data, due post-market hours on Monday.
India's inflation likely cooled to a 20-month low of 4.42% in May as food price rises slowed further, drawing closer to the Reserve Bank of India's medium-term target of 4%, a Reuters
poll
of economists found.
Sentiments remain weak after
the surprise interest rate hike by the Bank of Canada
last week, raising fears that the U.S. Federal Reserve could also remain hawkish at its meeting later this week, Prashanth Tapse, senior vice president for research at Mehta Equities said.
The benchmark Nifty 50 is seeing strong resistance at 18,500 levels, two analysts said.
Global equities advanced on rising odds of a Fed rate pause.
Among individual stocks, shares of Cochin Shipyard added nearly 5% after being
declared
the lowest bidder for an Indian Navy contract to upgrade a naval ship at an estimated value of 3 billion rupees.
CMS Infosystems
rose
4% after funds, including SBI Mutual Fund, IIFL Mutual Fund-IIFL Focused Equity Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority picked up shares at the promoter's 13.75% stake sale.
($1 = 82.4901 Indian Rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami and Dhanya Ann Thoppil)
