SENSEX drops over 800 points, NIFTY50 below 25,500; here is why markets are falling on Tuesday

The Indian equity benchmarks were trading sharply lower on Tuesday, February 24, ahead of monthly expiry of February stock, NIFTY50 and NIFTY Bank futures and option contracts.

The NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 25,482 and SENSEX dropped as much as 813 points dragged down by losses in information technology (IT) shares after the latest offering by artificial intelligence company Anthropic further raised concerns about the future of traditional IT companies among market participants.

Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Tata Consultancy Services, Eternal, HCL Technologies and Bajaj Finance were top drags on the SENSEX.

As of 9:45 am, the SENSEX was down 742 points at 82,552 and NIFTY50 index dropped 206 points to 25,508.

US stocks ended sharply lower on Monday after President Donald Trump ramped up his newest tariffs, while investors continued to punish companies that could be losers in the artificial-intelligence revolution.

Trump said on Saturday that he would place temporary 15% tariffs on other countries. That’s up from the 10% rate he announced Friday following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his sweeping “reciprocal” taxes on imports from around the world, news agency AP reported.

The S&P 500 index dropped 1%, Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1.66% and tech heavy Nasdaq fell 1.13%.

Back home, IT stocks came under heavy selling pressure after latest AI offering by Anthropic could be used to modernize legacy systems that run COBOL. Anthropic said that Claude Code tool could be used to modernize COBOL,a high-level, English-like programming language developed in 1959 for business, finance, and administrative systems.

NIFTY IT index was top sectoral loser on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the index dropped 3.15% with all the 10 stocks trading lower. In the last one month, the measure of IT shares has collapsed over 18% amid ongoing disruptions in the field of AI.

NIFTY Auto, FMCG, Realty, Media, PSU Bank, Healthcare and Consumer Durables indices also fell between 0.4%-1%.

On the flipside, NIFTY Oil & Gas index advanced 0.3% on the back of gains in ONGC after crude oil price in international markets moved above $72 per barrel.

Broader markets were facing intense selling pressure as NIFTY Midcap 100 index dropped 0.73% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index fell 0.9%.

Eternal was top loser in the NIFTY0 index, the stock dropped 3.84% to ₹257. HCL Technologies, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Bajaj Auto and Bajaj Finance also dropped between 1.7%-3.7%.

On the flipside, ONGC, Coal India, State Bank of India, Power Grid, JSW Steel and Hindalco were among the notable gainers.

The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 2,013 shares were declining while 636 were advancing on the BSE.