Indian stock markets opened after the Ganesh Chaturthi holiday with incessant selling in equities on Thursday morning. BSE benchmark index Sensex tanked 693 points to as low as 80,093.52, treading dangerously close to the 80,000-mark.
NSE benchmark index Nifty slumped over 205 points to 24,507.20, triggered by massive outflow of funds from IT and pharma firms. Nifty Pharma and Nifty IT indices were among the most affected by the slump.
Foreign funds outflow added to the mix; they offloaded Rs 6,516.49 crore worth of equities on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump’s secondary tariffs on India for Russian oil purchases came into effect on Wednesday. This added to the already imposed 25 per cent tariffs, bringing the total to 50 per cent.
THE WEEK covered the timeline of events that led to the US imposition of tariffs on India.
”The 50 per cent tariff imposed on India, which has already come into effect, will weigh on market sentiments in the near-term,” opined V.K. Vijayakumar of Geojit Investments. However, he said that the market would correct itself after viewing “these high tariffs as a short-term aberration which will be resolved soon.”
In the 30-pack Sensex, HCL Tech, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, TCS, Infosys, and Powergrid were the biggest laggards.
Market experts lauded the aggressive buying by domestic investors, offsetting the foreign outflow. “Any selling by FIIs will be easily neutralised by the aggressive buying by domestic institutional investors,” added Vijayakumar.
Indian stock markets were closed on Wednesday to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. The day earlier saw Sensex tank 849 points and the Nifty shed 255 points.