India’s stock markets tripped for the fifth straight day on Tuesday (February 11, 2025), as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff pronouncements and the fear of a growing trade war continued to spook markets, with the benchmark indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty tumbling over 1.3%.
The shares of small and mid-cap firms took an even more severe beating, with a decline of around 3%, and the NSE Nifty Midcap index falling to its lowest level since June 4, 2024. The BSE Smallcap index slumped 3.4%.
The Sensex plunged 1,018 points to close at 76,293.6 points, a two-week low, with foreign portfolio investors exiting in hordes. While all sectoral indices ended in the red, the BSE Metal index fell 2.23%, in light of the 25% import tariffs announced by the U.S. on all steel and aluminium imports.
However, shares of several Adani Group companies, including Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Adani Power, gained by 1.3%, 0.34% and 1.39% respectively after Mr. Trump signed an executive order pausing the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law had been invoked to initiate bribery investigations against the Adani Group firm Adani Green Energy.
The market breadth got sharply worse with the advance:decline ratio of shares listed on the BSE dropping to 0.15, the weakest since Lok Sabha poll results were announced on June 4 last year.
In the NSE Nifty, Reliance Industries Ltd. had the largest impact on the index decline, decreasing by 1.5%, said Devarsh Vakil, head of prime research at HDFC Securities.
Published - February 11, 2025 04:36 pm IST
