SENSEX tanks 678 points, NIFTY50 at 24,512 as 50% tariff kicks in; VIX soars 6%

The Indian stock market opened lower on Thursday, August 28, dragged majorly by IT stocks 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.

The broader market traded was also seen under pressure in the early session, with both the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 tumbling 0.94% and 1.04%, respectively.

Among sectors, all the gauges were trading lower. Nifty IT was the biggest laggard, slipping 1.25%, followed by Nifty Realty (-1.21%) and Nifty Pharma (-0.91%).

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 were seen trading with gains on Thursday, taking cues from the US market.

Japan's Nikkei was up 0.57%, South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.45%, and the Shanghai Composite also traded up marginally by 0.07%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was seen 0.66% 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 2,595 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,985 declined, 519 advanced, and 91 shares remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market's breadth was favourable towards declines.

Meanwhile, 11 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 48 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 31 stocks hit their upper circuits, while 35 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading at 12.92 levels, surging 6%.

Shriram Finance was the biggest losing stock, falling 2.72%, followed by HCL Technologies (-2.06%), HDFC Bank (-1.66%), Jio Financial Services (1.6%) and Sun Pharma (-1.37%).

On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp (1.55%), Eternal (0.80%), Asian Paints (0.75%), Eicher Motors (0.49%), Maruti Suzuki (0.30%), Titan (0.22%) and L&T (0.04%) were the only gainers on the 50-share index.