Key gauges continue to trade lower with minor cut

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade lower with minor cut in morning deals, dragged by IT stocks amid concerns over the US President Donald Trump's decision to raise H-1B visa fees to $1,00,000 per worker.  Traders remained cautious as the labour ministry in its latest data stated that retail inflation for farm and rural workers increased to 1.07 per cent and 1.26 per cent in August 2025 from 0.77 per cent and 1.01 per cent, respectively, in July. However, losses remain capped as the Reserve Bank of India said that India's forex reserves jumped $4.698 billion to $702.966 billion for the week ended September 12, 2025. Also, exchange data showed Foreign Institutional Investors bought equities worth Rs 390.74 crore on a net basis on Friday. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green as traders pondered the US monetary policy path after the Federal Reserve's rate cut last week, while President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown on worker visas kept sentiment in check. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 82517.39, down by 108.84 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 82151.07 and 82583.16. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.13%, while Small cap index was down by 0.02%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Utilities up by 1.90%, Power up by 1.70%, Realty up by 0.71%, Metal up by 0.55% and Auto up by 0.41%, while IT down by 2.34%, TECK down by 1.91%, Healthcare down by 0.52% and Telecom down by 0.38% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finance up by 1.24%, Eternal up by 0.85%, Trent up by 0.74%, Ultratech Cement up by 0.62% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.56%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 3.52%, Infosys down by 2.47%, TCS down by 2.26%, HCL Technologies down by 1.73% and Sun Pharma down by 0.91% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Given the broader objective of internationalisation of rupee (INR), RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra has asked Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) to create infrastructure to facilitate trading and settlement services of currency pairs beyond USD-INR. He also asked CCIL to enhance its retail investors-focused offerings on the forex and government securities front. 

For the past few years, internationalisation of the rupee has been a concerted policy agenda and the country has signed up agreements with a few countries to settle bilateral trade in local currencies. Further, he urged the CCIL to continuously explore and enhance its product and service offerings on the Forex Retail and the RBI Retail Direct, which will ensure a seamless customer experience and robust system capabilities. He noted that there are 3 lakh retail investors enlisted with the g-sec trading platform.

He has highlighted that India is the only major economy where government securities and repo transactions are traded on an anonymous electronic trading platform with near real-time dissemination of trade information and are settled efficiently through a central counterparty. Stating that the CCIL is a risk management company and a tech company rolled into one, he has asked CCIL to embrace innovation and leverage emerging technologies to increase efficiency, scalability, performance, security and reduce costs.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 25314.30, down by 12.75 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 25211.60 and 25331.70. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Enterprises up by 2.79%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.97%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.48%, SBI Life Insurance up by 1.45% and Bajaj Finance up by 1.28%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 3.48%, Infosys down by 2.51%, TCS down by 2.28%, Wipro down by 2.16% and HCL Technologies down by 1.66% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 546.19 points or 1.21% to 45,592.00, Taiwan Weighted added 303.08 points or 1.18% to 25,881.45, Shanghai Composite strengthened 5.52 points or 0.14% to 3,825.61, KOSPI increased 18.07 points or 0.52% to 3,463.31 and Straits Times rose 0.03 points to 4,302.74.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite plunged 22.56 points or 0.28% to 8,028.56 and Hang Seng declined 207.1 points or 0.78% to 26,338.00.