NIFTY50, SENSEX today: Wall Street cues, FII activity, key things to know before markets open on February 23

The Indian equity benchmarks are set to stage a gap up opening on Monday, February 23, as indicated by GIFT NIFTY futures. NIFTY futures at GIFT City in Ahmedabad surged 180 points to 25,746 amid positive cues from Asian markets.

The Indian equity benchmarks resumed their upmove after a day's pause in the previous session on Friday. The benchmarks opened on subdued note but staged recovery in late morning deals powered by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever and Axis Bank.

The SENSEX ended 317 points higher at 82,815 and NIFTY50 index advanced 117 points to close at 25,571.

Asian markets

Confusion loomed large after the US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs, leading him to announce a new 10% rate on the rest of the world, only to then lift it to 15% in a move that seemed to surprise some of his own officials.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 2.5%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.5% and South Korea's KOSPI gained 0.75%.

Markets in Japan and China were closed on account of holiday.

Wall Street update

The US markets ended in green on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of the president's sweeping global tariffs. The nation's highest court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorise the president to impose tariffs.

Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.47%, NASDAQ rose 0.9% and S&P 500 index climbed 0.7%.

Following the announcement by the Supreme Court, President Trump announced imposing 10% global tariffs on all nations, which he later increased to 15% over the weekend.

Consequently, the US stock market futures dropped on Monday morning as uncertainty over the tariffs increase. The Dow Jones and NASDAQ futures dropped over 200 points on Monday morning.

FII/DIII activity

Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth ₹935 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth ₹2,637 crore, data from the National Stock Exchange showed.

The FIIs have so far this month bought shares worth ₹16,912 crore, according to the data from National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).

Stocks to watch:

The bank has suspended four suspected officials, and it will pursue strict disciplinary, civil and criminal action against the employees and other external individuals responsible, in accordance with applicable law, IDFC First Bank said.

IDFC First Bank said that it received a request from a particular Department of Haryana Government for closure of its account and transfer of funds to another bank. In the process, certain discrepancy was observed in the amount mentioned vis-à-vis the balance in the account.

No government funds will be parked, deposited, invested or transacted through these institutions, it said.

"IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank are hereby de-empanelled for government business in Haryana with immediate effect till further orders," according to a circular issued by the Finance Department.

Real estate data analytic firm CRE Matrix has seen the registration document of Joint Development Agreement (JDA) between Lodha Developers and Sahana entities -- Sahana Properties and Resorts Pvt Ltd and Sahana Builders and Developers Pvt Ltd.

The registration of the JDA was done on February 11. The total land, located at Parel-Sewri in Mumbai, is 41,526 sq metre.

State Bank of India: The country's largest lender has set a goal of increasing green advances to 7.5-10% by 2030, with 25% of these advances to be funded through green lines of credit.

Green advances portfolio was 1.56% of the bank's total advances as on March 31, 2025.

Further strengthening this strategy, SBI has launched CHAKRA, a Centre of Excellence to finance sunrise sectors such as renewable energy, electric mobility and green hydrogen, accelerating India's green transition, the bank said in a statement on Sunday.

Return on assets (ROA) is a profitability metric that measures how efficiently a bank uses its assets to generate profit. A higher ROA indicates better asset utilization and an increase in the bottom line.

The MoU was signed at the India-Brazil Business Forum Summit in New Delhi during the official visit of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the company said in a statement.

Under the agreement, the three parties will jointly develop, operationalise and manage an SEZ-based ecosystem for blending, value addition and commercialisation of iron ore. The initiative is aimed at strengthening the iron ore export value chain on India's East Coast by improving efficiency, scale and global competitiveness in mineral processing and trade.

The US president also slammed Friday's Supreme Court verdict that had quashed the sweeping levies imposed by him last year.

With the earlier announced tariff rate of 10% to be applicable to countries around the world, Indian goods being imported into the US would no longer have been subjected to the 18% tariff rate that had been decided following the announcement of a framework for an interim agreement on trade between India and the US. But that would change now with the new announcement of the 15% tariff rates.

Trade setup

On technical charts, as highlighted earlier, the NIFTY50 negated the bearish engulfing pattern by closing above the previous week’s low level on the daily charts. On the hourly charts, the NIFTY50 failed to close above the 20 and 50 EMA levels on Friday, indicating a strong resistance at higher levels. With today’s gap-up opening, experts believe the index should hold above 25,700 levels to continue the momentum towards 26,000 this week.

On options data front, the 26,000 calls hold the highest open interest, indicating a strong resistance for tomorrow’s expiry. Similarly, the 25,600, 25,700 and 25,800 calls witnessed heavy unwinding of open interest, indicating the absence of barriers at these levels on Monday morning. Similarly, on the flipside, the 25,800 puts witnessed heavy open interest addition and held the highest open interest, indicating a strong support for the NIFTY50.