BENGALURU, May 29 (Reuters) - Indian shares opened lower on Wednesday, dragged by losses in heavyweight financials and information technology stocks, while uncertainty around domestic election results and the timing of U.S. rate cuts also weighed.

The NSE Nifty 50 was down 0.5% at 22,763 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex lost 0.6% to 74,745 points, as of 10:16 a.m. IST.

The volatility index eased slightly in the early session but rose back up to hover near two-year highs.

Nervousness around the outcome of the national general elections next week due to lower voter turnout and uncertainty about the margin of victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party has driven volatility, analysts said.

"An important sustaining trend during this uncertain phase is the continuous buying by domestic institutional investors," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Domestic institutional investors bought 32.32 billion rupees ($388.17 million) worth of stocks on Tuesday while foreign investors were net sellers.

Ten out of the 13 major sectoral indexes declined.

The financial services stocks fell nearly 1%, snapping four sessions of gains. Heavyweight HDFC Bank dropped 1.2% and HDFC Life Insurance Co shed 1.9%, both among the top Nifty losers.

The Nifty bank index dropped 1%, after gaining nearly 3% in the past four sessions.

U.S.-rate cut sensitive IT stocks were down 0.5%.

Global equities traded lower as doubts about the timing and extent of Federal Reserve rate cuts resurfaced.

Among individual stocks, Paytm rose 5% on a media report that Indian billionaire and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani was buying a stake in the digital payments firm, despite Paytm's denial of such a deal.

Real estate developer Brigade Enterprises rose 3%, hitting a record high after its quarterly profit surged three-fold. ($1 = 83.2630 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dimpal Gulwani in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)