FPJ News Service New Delhi

The Indian equity markets closed in the red on Friday, ending a six-session winning streak and erasing gains accumulated over the past three days. The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 693.86 points to settle at 81,306.85. During the day, it plunged 708.94 points to 81,291.77.  The 50-share NSE Nifty dropped 213.65 points to 24,870.10. As many as 2,316 stocks declined while 1,765 advanced and 159 remained unchanged on the BSE.

As expected, headwinds from Trump tariffs have started impacting the Indian stock market, constraining the 6-day rally. “If the penal tariff of 25% kicks in on August 27, and this appears likely, the impact on India’s growth will not be 20 to 30 bps estimated with 25% reciprocal tariffs, but more. The market will have to discount that,” underlined Dr VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments.

“A significant trend in the market is the outperformance of largecaps, which is desirable and fundamentally justified. While Nifty is up by 1% during the last one year, Nifty Midcap 150 is down by 0.35% and Nifty Smallcap 250 is down by 4.7 % during the same period. This trend is fundamentally justified and likely to continue. Midcap IT is showing resilience now. Investors should focus on valuations now,” Dr VKV added.

Investor sentiment turned cautious ahead of the US Fed Chair’s speech. The US using trade tariffs on India as a strategic tool in its stance against Russia has raised near-term concerns among institutional investors. However, strong domestic indicators offer support: the PMI has hit a record high and recently proposed indirect tax reliefs are expected to boost consumption, underscoring India’s economic resilience,” said Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Investments.

Asian shares were mixed after Wall Street fell to a fifth straight loss, hurt by losses for Walmart and worries over coming cuts to interest rates. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed early gains, slipping 0.1% to 42,597.94 after Japan’s core inflation rate slowed to 3.1% in July, from 3.3% in June.