Sensex Slips 205 Points, Nifty Falls Below 24,800; Tata Steel Gains 3%

Sensex Opens Lower, Nifty Below 24,800 Amid FMCG and Auto Declines; Tata Motors Gains 5.5%.

Indian benchmark indices opened lower on Friday, resuming trading after a holiday, as losses in FMCG and auto stocks weighed on the market. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 208.31 points to 80,775, while the NSE Nifty50 dropped 75 points to 24,760.80 at 9:30 am.

Dr. VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, noted that the central bank’s measures to boost credit growth could support market momentum, particularly in the Bank Nifty. “However, sustained FII selling may keep the bulls on the defensive, given the large short positions in the market,” he added.

Early gainers included Tata Motors (up 5.54%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (+3.45%), Trent (+3.31%), Sun Pharma (+2.58%), and Axis Bank (+2.43%). The biggest losers were Bajaj Finance (-1.10%), SBI (-0.97%), UltraTech Cement (-0.86%), Tata Steel (-0.71%), and Asian Paints (-0.62%).

Among sectoral indices, Nifty Metal led with a 0.76% gain, followed by Nifty Pharma (+0.28%), Nifty PSU Bank (+0.28%), Nifty Private Bank (+0.25%), and Nifty Consumer Durables (+0.22%). Nifty Media fell the most, down 0.71%, along with Nifty Financial Services (-0.40%) and Nifty Auto (-0.38%).

Midcap and smallcap indices showed modest gains, with Nifty Midcap100 up 0.32% and Nifty Smallcap100 rising 0.50%. India VIX increased 2.13%, reflecting slightly higher volatility.

Vijayakumar highlighted that aggressive DII buying could support largecap auto stocks and banks. “Auto stocks remain resilient on strong sales and large orders, while fairly valued largecap banks are attractive from a medium- to long-term perspective, benefiting from higher credit growth and lower deposit insurance premiums,” he said.