Market Wrap, August 28: NIFTY50 ends at 24,500, SENSEX crashes 706 points as 50% tariff comes into effect; Shriram Fin, HCLT top losers

The Indian stock market faced the heat of US tariffs and closed lower on Thursday, August 28, as additional US tariffs on India came into effect.

The US's 50% tariffs on Indian goods came into effect on Wednesday and are expected to impact exports and job creation in labour-intensive sectors such as shrimp, apparel, diamonds, leather and footwear, and gems and jewellery.

Meanwhile, the government on Thursday said it is trying to speed up the rollout of the export promotion mission to help exporters. A government official said exporters have sought help on the liquidity front, "and all issues are under consideration of the government."

The equity benchmark indices were majorly dragged by IT, realty and banking stocks, while the market breadth largely stayed in favour of bears.

According to exchange data, on Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹6,516.49 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹7,060.37 crore on a net basis.

The Indian stock market remained closed on Wednesday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi.

Globally, most of the stocks in Asia ended with gains on Thursday, taking cues from the US market.

Japan's Nikkei was up 0.63%, South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.29%, and the Shanghai Composite surged 1.13%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 0.75% lower.

On Wall Street, the key indices settled higher on Wednesday ahead of quarterly results from Nvidia, which will test the rally that has pushed valuations of AI-related companies.

The S&P 500 gained 0.24% to close at 6,481.40 points, and the Nasdaq rose 0.21% to 21,590.14, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.32% to end at the 45,565.23 level.

As many as 3,075 stocks traded on the NSE on Thursday. Out of this, 2,015 declined and 960 stocks advanced, while 100 scrips remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market breadth was in favour of declines.

A total of 32 stocks hit their 52-week highs, while 83 stocks touched their one-year lows. Besides, 57 stocks hit their upper circuit limits, and 98 touched their lower circuit bands on Thursday.

NSE-listed firms' market capitalisation stood at ₹441.70 lakh crore at the end of the session.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, stood at 12.18 levels, declining 0.12%.

The broader market largely remained under pressure, with the Nifty Smallcap 100 index slipping 1.45% at 17,294.35 levels, while the Nifty Midcap 100 index closed 1.27% lower at 56,047.50 levels.

Except for Nifty Consumer Durables (0.56%), all the other sectoral gauges settled with losses on Thursday.

Nifty IT (-1.59%) fell the most, followed by Nifty Realty (-1.5%), Nifty PSU Bank (-1.03%), Nifty FMCG (-1.02%) and Nifty Private Bank (-1.01%).

Shriram Finance took the lead among the most losing stocks, falling 3.94%. HCL Technologies (-2.85%), Power Grid (-2.04%), TCS (-1.88%) and Tata Consumer Durables (-1.82%) were the other top laggards.

On the contrary, Titan (1.06%), Coal India (0.68%), Hero MotoCorp (0.65%), Larsen & Toubro (0.64%) and Maruti Suzuki (0.57%) were the biggest-gaining stocks on the 50-share index.