Sensex, Nifty magnify opening losses to trade deeply in red amid weak global cues

Indian equity benchmarks made a gap-down opening on Friday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said his proposed 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will take effect on March 4 along with an extra 10 percent duty on Chinese imports over the fentanyl opioid crisis, deepening the fear of a global trade war. Trump's tariff plans also sparked concerns about inflation, interest rates and economic growth. Besides, industrial output in Japan dropped a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent on month in January. Meanwhile, overall inflation in the Tokyo region was up 2.9 percent on year in February. Closer home, Sensex and Nifty have magnified their opening losses and were trading deeply in red with cut of over a percent each in early deals amid panic selling and foreign fund outflows. The Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 556 crore on February 27.

On the sectoral front, auto stocks are in focus as ratings agency Icra said passenger vehicle sales volume in India is expected to grow at a moderate pace of 4-7 per cent in FY26 with most demand drivers remaining neutral or favourable. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 73647.11, down by 965.32 points or 1.29% after trading in a range of 73644.31 and 74282.43. There was 1 stock advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 2.23%, while Small cap index was down by 2.25%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were IT down by 3.14%, TECK down by 2.91%, Telecom down by 2.58%, Auto down by 2.56% and Consumer Disc down by 2.14%, while there was no gainer on the BSE sectoral front.

The sole gainer on the Sensex was Reliance Industries up by 0.59%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 4.73%, Tech Mahindra down by 4.59%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.89%, HCL Technologies down by 3.67% and Infosys down by 3.59% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India needs to ramp up its bilateral relations for trade and investment, as the world is witnessing a churn, and bilateralism seems to be the new catalyst tool. She said these are very interesting yet challenging times and the government is making all efforts to make India move up the ladder and be an engine of global growth. She said ‘Bilateralism is now taking the top of the agenda… It is for us to ramp up our bilateral relations with many countries, not just for trade, not just for investment, but also for strategic relations. So multilateralism, sort of, out, I’m still saying with a qualifying word ‘sort of out’, but bilateralism is very much your only catalytic tool that you can use’.

Observing that multilateral institutions are increasingly fading away, she said every attempt to revive them and energize them is not having the desired result. She said ‘So, where you have to address issues which affect more than your own country. You have no more forums left which can effectively deliver… multilateral institutions and their contributions probably are fading away, at least in the near future, till an attempt is made to revive them with that kind of energy… It’s not going to happen in the next few years’.

Asserting that global trade is undergoing a complete reset, she said ‘the terms and references with which all of us played trade, with some kind of an anchor in the World Trade Organization are no longer available.’ She said there is no Most Favoured Nation (MFN) concept, and added that every country wants to be treated special, and every country wants to be sure that special treatment that they get is not by default. She said ‘So if the WTO is getting weakened or multilateral institutions are not being effective… bilateral arrangements are going to be the order of the day in terms of trade’. 

Sensing the movement toward a new world, India has initiated bilateral trade talks with many nations including the UK and is planning a bilateral trade agreement with the US. India is also in discussion with the 27-nation grouping - the European Union, for a free trade pact. Talking about reforms, Sitharaman said, it is something which the government will continue to do in various areas including debt management and maintaining fiscal prudence.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22235.35, down by 309.70 points or 1.37% after trading in a range of 22233.60 and 22450.35. There were 4 stocks advancing against 46 stocks declining on the index.

The few gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 2.78%, Shriram Finance up by 0.99%, Reliance Industries up by 0.33% and Grasim Industries up by 0.24%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 5.24%, Tech Mahindra down by 4.65%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 4.38%, Wipro down by 3.99% and SBI Life Insurance down by 3.65% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading lower; Nikkei 225 slipped 1262.81 points or 3.3% to 36,993.36, Hang Seng declined 546.6 points or 2.3% to 23,171.69, Jakarta Composite lost 174.09 points or 2.68% to 6,311.36, KOSPI dropped 79.68 points or 3.04% to 2,542.07, Straits Times fell 31.16 points or 0.79% to 3,890.03 and Shanghai Composite was down by 29.78 points or 0.89% to 3,358.28.