SENSEX falls over 300 points, NIFTY50 below 25,700 paced by losses in metal stocks

The Indian equity benchmarks edged lower on Thursday, February 5, amid weak global cues. The SENSEX fell as much as much as 297 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 25,674 dragged down by losses in index heavyweights like Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries and InterGlobe Aviation.

As of 9:24 am, the SENSEX was down 225 points at 83,573 and NIFTY50 index dropped 85 points to 25,690.

Asian markets were trading lower on Thursday s concerns about the exploding costs of AI investment hounded the tech sector, news agency Reuters reported.

Japan's Nikkei fell 0.66%, South Korea's KOSPI declined 3.3%, China's Shanghai Composite dropped 1.2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 1.5%.

US stocks ended lower on Wednesday as selloff in technology shares continued for a second straight session.

Advanced Micro Devices dropped 17.3% even though the chip company reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also gave a forecast for revenue for the start of 2026 that topped analysts’ expectations, but that may not have been enough for investors after its stock had doubled over the last 12 months, AP reported.

S&P 500 index declined 0.51%, Dow jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% and tech heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.5%.

Back home, ten of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were trading lower led by NIFTY Metal index's 2% fall. Metal stocks came under selling pressure after silver fell sharply lower in trade as silver futures on MCX dropped over 8% to ₹2,46,816 per kilogram.

NIFTY Auto, Financial Services, Pharma, Private Bank, Realty, Healthcare and Consumer Durable indices also declined between 0.4%-1.1%.

On the flipside, FMCG, IT, PSU bank and oil & gas shares were witnessing buying interest.

Broader markets were also facing selling pressure as NIFTY Midcap 100 index declined 0.4% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index declined 0.9%.

Among the individual shares, JSW Cement shares rose as much as 9% after it reported net profit of ₹142 crore in third quarter of current financial year compared with a loss of ₹69 crore in the year-ago period.

Hindalco was top loser in the NIFTY0 index, the stock fell 3.2% to ₹934 after prices of aluminium and copper dropped by 2% each on the MCX.

Tata Motors PV, Shriram Finance, InterGlobe Aviation, Bharat Electronics, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Asian Paints and Larsen & Toubro also declined between 1%-2.8%.

On the flipside, Hindustan Unilever, Jio Financial Services, ONGC, Grasim, Wipro, Infosys and NTPC were among the top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,784 shares were trading lower while 890 were advancing on the NSE.