(Updates at 10:45 a.m. IST)

By Kashish Tandon

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Indian shares inched lower on Friday,

weighed down by IT and financials, as investors remained jittery

about the Federal Reserve's projection of fewer rate cuts next

year, which has spurred an exodus of foreign funds.

The Nifty 50 was down 0.1% at 23,928.60 as of 10:45

a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex shed 0.2% to 79,078.69.

Both benchmarks have logged weekly losses of over 3% so far.

The indexes are heading for their first weekly decline in five.

The Fed this week delivered a quarter-point rate cut but

forecast two reductions in 2025, half of what policymakers had

anticipated, dampening foreign investors' appetite for Indian

equities.

They offloaded 122.31 billion rupees ($1.44 billion) of

stocks this week until Thursday, but are still net buyers in

December after being net sellers for two straight months.

U.S. rate cuts tend to help emerging markets assets, such as

Indian equities, as they boost foreign inflows.

In Mumbai, heavyweight financials dropped 0.3%,

with Axis Bank sliding 2.2%.

Domestic IT firms, which earn a chunk of their

revenue from the U.S. and are sensitive to the country's

interest rates, fell 0.2%, giving up early gains after peer

Accenture ( ACN ) beat quarterly revenue and profit estimates.

"Even though Accenture's ( ACN ) upbeat results gave an initial

boost to tech stocks, Fed's hawkish rate cut outlook has hurt

sentiment and foreign investment inflows are still negative,"

said Anita Gandhi, founder and head of institution at Arihant

Capital Markets.

Meanwhile, pharma stocks, which earn most of

their revenue from exports, climbed 0.3% and were set for a

weekly gain of 3%.

The Indian rupee hit an all-time low of 85.10 on

Friday on persistent dollar strength, making it cheaper for

other countries to import drugs from India.

Among individual stocks, battery maker Amara Raja

gained as much as 5% after Hyundai Motor India said it

would equip its domestic cars with the company's absorbent glass

mat battery technology.

($1 = 85.0860 Indian rupees)