(Updates at 10:52 a.m. IST)

BENGALURU, May 14 (Reuters) -

Indian shares advanced on Tuesday, led by a rise in metal stocks and Shriram Finance on plans to sell its housing finance unit, but gains were capped due to a drop in IT stocks ahead of U.S. inflation data.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 was up 0.15% at 22,142 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex added 0.13% to 72,869.14, as of 10:53 a.m. IST.

Both the benchmarks rose about 0.25% each at the open. Seven of the 13 major sectors logged gains.

Shriram Finance jumped as much as 5% in early trade, after it announced plans to sell its housing finance business to U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus for $554.6 million.

Meanwhile, U.S.-rate sensitive IT stocks fell 0.4% ahead of U.S. consumer price inflation data, due on Wednesday.

A hotter-than-expected inflation print could delay U.S. rate cuts, which may spark further foreign selling, according to analysts.

Indian markets are already battling intense selling by foreign investors and worries about election results, which has weighed on sentiment and resulted in volatility hovering around 19-month highs.

Foreign portfolio investors have offloaded Indian shares worth 183.75 billion rupees in May so far, the highest since January.

Besides worries over elections, analysts also attributed persistent foreign selling to relatively higher valuations of Indian stocks compared to other emerging markets like China.

Under current circumstances, investors are likely to remain in wait-and-watch mode, said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Meanwhile, aluminium producer Hindalco added about 2% after its unit Novelis made public its filing for an initial public offering in the United States.

Metal stocks gained 1.3% during the session.

Pepsi-bottler Varun Beverages gained 2.1% after beating fourth-quarter profit expectations on Monday.

($1 = 83.4990 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Sonia Cheema )