Indian shares begin 2016 on muted note

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian shares got off to a tentative start in 2016, with minor losses on Friday as banks and IT stocks came under some amount of selling pressure.

Indian markets lacked cues from their Asian peers as most international markets were shut to mark the start of the year.

Investors back home are now looking towards the second week of January for signs of a recovery in corporate balance sheets when Indian companies report quarterly earnings.

"IT, pharma will do well, private sector banks in the second half of the year will do well and cement will do well on infra spending," Gaurang Shah, vice president of Geojit BNP Paribas said while listing his preferred sectors for 2016.

 

The Nifty was down 0.13 percent 12:56 p.m., while the Sensex was 0.1 percent lower.

Declines in financials and IT stocks outweighed gains in select auto, industrials and energy stocks. The Bank Nifty, a sub-index of the NSE, was down 0.42 percent.

Auto stocks were a mixed bag as Eicher Motors Ltd rose over 3 percent, while Maruti Suzuki India Ltd was down 0.14 percent after releasing December sales figures.

IDBI Bank gained as much as 2.6 percent after the lender got government approval for raising 37.71 billion rupees ($569.6 million) in capital.

Shares that attracted investors in a quiet market, include aviation stocks such as Jet Airways , which rose 9.4 percent, Spicejet , up 12 percent, while InterGlobe Aviation was up 11.5 percent after oil companies cut jet fuel prices by 10 percent.

($1 = 66.2100 rupees)

(Reporting by Karen Rebelo in Mumbai; Editing by Anand Basu)