Indian equity indices opened Thursday’s trading session on a lower note taking note of US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The NSE Nifty 50 was down 34 points, or 0.15%, lower at 22,899, while the BSE Sensex was down 201 points, or 0.26%, at 75,738.21.
Bank Nifty declined 300 points or 0.61% to trade at 49,269.55. Bucking the overall trend, the Nifty Midcap 100 surged 375 points, or 0.74%, to 50,902.80.
The GIFT Nifty indicated that the equity markets might open on a lower note. It was down 66 points, or 0.29%, at 22,894. During the pre-open session, the Nifty 50 was down 111.80 points, or 0.49%, at 22,821.10, while the Sensex was down 266 points, or 0.35%, at 75,672.84.
“Trump’s tariff talks continue to impact markets. If this is implemented in early April as Trump declared, it will impact the US, too, through shortages and higher prices. It appears that Trump’s intention is to negotiate and extract concessions before tariffs are imposed. It remains to be seen how this will pan out,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. “A positive news is the RBI indicating growth recovery in H2 FY25. This bodes well for growth and earnings recovery in FY26. The market will start responding positively to the high-frequency data indicating growth recovery.”
“The market has to get out of the 22700 – 23300 zone for any real trend to begin until this churn is likely to continue,” said Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research at Axis Securities.
Dr Reddy’s Lab, TCS, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, and Adani Enterprises were the significant losers in the Nifty 50. On the other hand, BEL, Hindalco, Eicher Motors, Axis Bank, and L&T were the top gainers in the Nifty 50.
However, on February 20, the market breadth remained in favour of the bulls as out of 2,879 stocks traded, 2,025 stocks were trading in the green while 800 declined, as per the data on NSE.
Among the sectoral indices, the Nifty Metal and Oil & Gas indices were the only ones to trade in the green. Nifty Metal was up by 0.4% at 8,392.20.
Apart from that, the gold rate today has jumped 0.69% compared to a day back. The cost of gold today is Rs 86,660 per 10 grams in India. A week ago, the price of gold was Rs 85,920/10 grams. While the 22 kt gold rate today is Rs 79,438. The 18 carat gold price today is Rs 64,995 in India.