Dalal Street painted red on Friday morning as the Sensex fell over 24 points to open trade at 84,531.65 and the Nifty declined 9.90 points to start trading at 25,881.
Among the top gainers in the stock market on Friday were stocks like ICICI Bank, Bharat Electronics, Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles. The laggards included Ultra Cement, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Asian Paints, Trent and Bajaj Finserv.
However, in the pre-open session, at 9:07 AM, the Sensex was trading at over 84,600 increasing over 100 points and Nifty was trading over 25,900 more than 38 points.
The Gift Nifty indicated a decline of more than 16 points at around 8:41 AM, trading at 25,995.50.
India-US Trade Talks, Robust Buying In Tech Stocks
Previously, on Thursday evening the Sensex climbed 130.06 points or 0.15 per cent to settle at 84,556.40 and the Nifty ended 22.80 points or 0.09 per cent higher at 25,891.40.
The indices were helped by robust buying in the IT sector and tech stocks amid growing optimism on the US-India trade deal front.
The stock markets also reversed most of their intra-day gains, after a 52-week high, on the fag-end of the day due to profit-taking as sentiments turned cautious amid concerns over US sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies.
Additionally, a decline of over one per cent in the heavyweight Reliance Industries stocks also pulled the markets lower.
What Do Analysts Say?
IT stocks gained ground as market sentiment lifted following former US President Donald Trump’s softer remarks on H1B visas.
“As the undercurrent vibes of the domestic market have improved due to a possible India-US deal and a rise in consumer demand, the broad market is expected to do much better henceforth,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Investments Limited.
He added that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are gradually returning to Indian markets, buoyed by expectations of an earnings rebound in the second half of FY26, supported by festive demand, tax incentives, and GST reductions.
The Indian equity market closed flat, paring early gains as investors engaged in selective profit booking amid a cautious global backdrop. “Uncertainty around global trade developments and the absence of fresh domestic triggers led to profit booking,” Bajaj Broking Research noted.
