Mumbai: Indian stocks declined, with the benchmark index halting two weeks of gains, after quarterly sales at the nation’s biggest software exporter missed estimates.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd tumbled the most in six months, leading a slide in a gauge of technology companies. Axis Bank Ltd paced declines among its peers. Reliance Industries Ltd, owner of the world’s largest refining complex, ended a seven-day rising streak before its earnings. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, the most valuable drugmaker, tumbled the most in 11 months.

The S&P BSE Sensex declined 0.8 per cent to 28,442.10 at the close in Mumbai, extending this week’s loss to 1.5 per cent. TCS, India’s biggest company by market value, said its fiscal fourth- quarter profit dropped after a one-time bonus to employees, while sales rose less than forecast. Sensex profits in the three months to March 31 will probably fall for a second straight quarter, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg show.

“The earnings aren’t going anywhere and there are no drivers for the markets,” Andrew Holland, chief executive officer of Ambit Investment Advisors Pvt., said in an interview to Bloomberg TV India. “We are in a consolidation phase and the results season is going to be pretty bad.”

Macquarie Capital Securities India Pvt, the most accurate index forecaster for the past two years in Bloomberg surveys, cut its earnings-per-share forecast for the 30 Sensex companies by 2.2 per cent for the year through March 2016.

Reliance earnings

TCS shares plunged 4.2 per cent, the most since Oct. 17, after its revenue rose to 242.2 billion rupees (Dh14.2 billion, $3.9 billion), missing the 245.4 billion-rupee median of 31 analyst estimates amid weak demand from clients in the insurance and energy sectors. Quarterly profit fell 27 per cent from a year earlier to 38.6 billion rupees.

Shares of Wipro, India’s third-largest software developer, decreased 2.5 per cent. Infosys Ltd., the second-largest, slipped 0.7 per cent. The S&P BSE Infotech index lost 1.5 per cent.

TCS’s results, the first for a Sensex company for the quarter ended March, came as investors seek more evidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to propel economic growth will lead to a revival in corporate profitability.

Reliance Industries today said after market hours its fourth-quarter profit surged 11 per cent to 62.4 billion rupees, beating the 59.6 billion rupees estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Its shares lost 0.2 per cent, ending a seven- day, 13 per cent rally.

Axis Bank retreated 3.1 per cent. ICICI Bank Ltd., the country’s biggest private lender, fell 0.8 per cent. Sun Pharmaceutical dropped 4.6 per cent, the most since May 2014. Lupin Ltd. plunged 6.9 per cent, the most since November 2008.

Global investors sold a net $18 million of local shares on April 15, paring this year’s inflows to $6.3 billion, still the most among eight Asian markets tracked by Bloomberg.

The Sensex has gained 3.4 per cent this year and trades at 15.8 times projected 12-month earnings, compared with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index’s multiple of 12.6.