Sensex, Nifty trade under pressure ahead of release of Q4 GDP data

Indian equity benchmarks made flat-to-negative start on Friday following broadly negative cues from Asian counterparts as lingering uncertainty about the ongoing trade war continued to weight on the markets after an appeals court temporarily paused the lower court's ruling to block US President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs on imports from U.S. trade partners. Sensex and Nifty were struggling for direction and are trading lower in early deals ahead of the release of Q4 GDP data. Traders overlooked NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Suman Bery’s statement that the size of the Indian economy in the purchasing power parity (PPP) term is already $15 trillion, which is more than half the size of the US economy.

In stock specific development, Bajaj Auto fell as it reported a 10 percent year-on-year decline in its consolidated net profit for Q4FY25. Ola Electric lost after widening its loss in the fourth quarter.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 81497.13, down by 135.89 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 81414.02 and 81698.21. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.06%, while Small cap index was up by 0.13%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.20%, Power up by 0.77%, Industrials up by 0.70% and Energy up by 0.01%, while Metal down by 0.98%, IT down by 0.87%, TECK down by 0.80%, Auto down by 0.59% and Basic Materials down by 0.50% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Eternal up by 1.03%, Bajaj Finserv up by 0.87%, Reliance Industries up by 0.69%, Adani Ports & SEZ up by 0.49% and Larsen & Toubro up by 0.48%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 1.59%, Infosys down by 1.56%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.01%, Tata Steel down by 0.98% and Tata Motors down by 0.90% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing an optimism over India’s growth prospects, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Suman Bery has said that the size of the Indian economy in the purchasing power parity (PPP) term is already $15 trillion, which is more than half the size of the US economy. The purchasing power parity (PPP) is the amount of currency units required to purchase a basket of goods and services that can be purchased with one unit of the reference economy’s currency. 

He added ‘There has been a lot in the newspapers about our being the fourth largest economy. Those are all measured at market prices, but the real way of measuring productivity is purchasing power parity’. He also said ‘And while we are $4 trillion GDP at market prices, at PPP term, we are $15 trillion economy’. He said that ‘economists tend to measure labour productivity at purchasing power parity as PPP measures the real size of the economy of countries against the size of the US economy. And so while we (the size of India economy in PPP term) are at $15 trillion, the United States is at $29 trillion. So we are roughly half the world size of the US economy.’

He said India needs to diversify its sources of supply, so the country would not have to depend on a particular supplier. He also suggested that India should leverage global knowledge and innovate locally, while reforming markets and building skills. He emphasised that the states should utilise opportunities of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which were signed by the Union government. He said competitiveness should not only be restricted to manufacturing but should extend to services as well. He said India’s labour productivity is the lowest among the G20 nations and a sustained rise in productivity of labour is crucial for India to leverage its demographic dividend.

Bery pointed out that ‘India has maintained an average growth rate of 6.5 per cent for the 30 years since 1991 reforms to the COVID period in 2021, suggesting that the roots of resilience in India are as much in our institutions as they are in our policies. Deep institutional sources of resilience are in place, but we mustn’t be complacent, because we need to up our game for all kinds of reasons.’ According to Bery, industrialisation is another challenge facing the country and policy lessons could be drawn from countries such as China, Japan and South Korea even though each country must work out its own path and productivity trajectory.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 24801.30, down by 32.30 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 24780.00 and 24863.95. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Eternal up by 1.30%, Bajaj Finserv up by 0.73%, Reliance Industries up by 0.68%, JIO Financial Services up by 0.64% and Trent up by 0.49%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 2.38%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.66%, Hindalco down by 1.65%, Infosys down by 1.55% and Indusind Bank down by 1.22% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading lower; Nikkei 225 slipped 491.87 points or 1.28% to 37,941.11, Hang Seng declined 348.98 points or 1.5% to 23,224.40, KOSPI dropped 24.26 points or 0.89% to 2,696.38, Shanghai Composite weakened 10.38 points or 0.31% to 3,353.07 and Straits Times fell 1.31 points or 0.03% to 3,915.53.