Market Wrap, Dec 31: Indices end 2025 on positive note as NIFTY50 closes at 26,129, SENSEX jumps 545 pts; SMIDs outperform

On the final trading day of 2025, the Indian equity market closed higher on Wednesday, December 31, led by a strong rally in oil and gas and metal stocks, while the broader market outperformed the main benchmarks.

Investor sentiment was further boosted as the government on Tuesday said that India has surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, with gross domestic product (GDP) valued at $4.18 trillion. 

Shares of steel producers like Tata Steel, JSW Steel, SAIL and Jindal Steel closed higher after the government on Tuesday imposed an 11%-12% three-year import tariff on some steel products, as the government aims to curb cheap shipments from China.

According to exchange data, on Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹3,844.02 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹6,159.81 crore on a net basis.

On the global front, the Asian markets closed mixed on Wednesday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng ending down 1.07% and Singapore's Straits Times falling 0.2%, while China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.09%.

Markets in Japan and South Korea were shut on account of the New Year's Eve holiday.

On Wall Street, US stock markets ended lower on Tuesday, with major indices falling in a light-volume pre-holiday session, marking a subdued close to an otherwise volatile year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.14%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.24%.

Here are the key developments of Wednesday's session that you need to know

As many as 3,250 stocks traded on the NSE on Wednesday. Out of this, 2,222 advanced and 936 stocks declined, while 85 scrips remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of advances.

A total of 68 stocks hit their 52-week highs, while 83 stocks touched their one-year lows. Besides, 74 stocks hit their upper circuit limits, and 60 touched their lower circuit bands on Wednesday.

The market capitalisation of NSE-listed firms stood at ₹473.64 lakh crore at the close of the session, adding ₹4.45 lakh crore.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, stood at 9.48 levels, falling 2.09%.

Driven by HPCL (6.56%), SAIL (4.31%) and Godfrey Phillips India (3.7%), the Nifty Midcap 100 index gained 0.95% to end at 60,484.50.

The Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed 1.11% to close at 17,713.95, led by strong gains in Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation (6.7%), Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (6.24%) and PCBL Chemical (5.8%).

Except for Nifty IT (-0.3%), all the other sectoral gauges ended the last session of 2025 in green.

Nifty Oil & Gas took the lead among gainers, surging 2.66%, followed by Nifty Consumer Durables (1.56%), Nifty Media (0.5%), Nifty Metal (1.45%), and Nifty PSU Bank (1.21%).

On the NIFTY50 index, 44 stocks closed higher, while only 6 declined by the end of the session.

JSW Steel was the most contributing stock, rising 4.88% followed by ONGC (2.46%), Tata Steel (2.35%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (2.34%), and Reliance Industries (1.9%).

On the flip side, TCS (-1.13%), Tech Mahindra (-0.85%), Grasim Industries (-0.31%), Bajaj Finance (-0.28%), Infosys (-0.23%) and Sun Pharma (-0.01%) were the only laggards on the 50-share index.