INDIA STOCKS-Indian benchmarks erase losses as hopes of US-Russia talks arrest tariff-led slide

By Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M

MUMBAI, Aug 7 (Reuters) - India's stock benchmarks erased intraday losses to settle flat on Thursday, as news of a U.S.-Russia presidential meeting helped markets rebound from a slide sparked by the U.S. doubling tariffs on Indian goods.

The Nifty 50 .NSEI and Sensex .BSESN dropped nearly 1% intraday, hitting their lowest since May.

The Nifty, however, closed 0.09% higher at 24,596.15 points and the Sensex gained 0.1% to 80,623.26.

The benchmarks recovered after the announcement of a meeting between Russian President Putin and U.S. President Trump in the coming days, which analysts say will soften Washington's stance on India's imports of Russian oil.

The broader small- .NIFSMCP100 and mid-caps .NIFMDCP100 rose 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.

On Wednesday, Trump imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods over the 25% duty announced earlier, citing New Delhi's continued buying of Russian oil.

"The prima facie imposition of a combined 50% tariff on Indian exports is negative for markets and for investor sentiment, including foreign institutional investors," said Peeyush Mittal, portfolio manager at Matthews Asia.

Foreign portfolio investors have sold Indian shares worth $900 million so far in August, following $2 billion in outflows in July amid trade uncertainty and weak corporate earnings.

Still, expectations of a resolution before the new tariffs take effect on August 27 and the news of U.S.-Russia presidential talks helped markets recover from the day's losses, three analysts said.

Energy .NIFTYENR and oil & gas .NIFOILGAS indexes, which lost about 1% each during the session, dragged by Reliance RELI.NS and oil-marketing companies on fears of rising costs if Russian oil supplies are disrupted, pared most of their losses to close about 0.2% lower.

IT .NIFTYIT and pharma .NIPHARM stocks, which have high exposure to the U.S. economy, also rebounded from intraday declines and rose 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively.

Among individual stocks, Hero MotoCorp HROM.NS jumped 4.2% after reporting a quarterly profit beat.