Market Opening Bell: Indices rally 2% amid some tariff relaxations; NIFTY50 above 23,300, SENSEX jumps 1,500 pts, auto stocks surge

The Indian stock market on Tuesday, April 15, opened 2% higher as investors confidence was boosted following a likely relaxation on auto tariffs and a rally in the global markets.

At 9:23 AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX surged 1,572.94 points, or 2.09%, at the 76,730.20 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 23,295.05 level, jumping 466.50 points, or 2.04%.

The NIFTY50 index recovered all the losses from April 2.

The auto stocks were the biggest gainer among sectors, soaring 3% during the opening session following US President Donald Trump suggesting that he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs.

“I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies with it,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. The Republican president said automakers needed time to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and other places. "And they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So, I'm talking about things like that.”

The broader market opened with gains as both midcap and smallcap stocks advanced nearly 2%.

Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, Larsen and Toubro, Shriram Finance and HDFC Bank were the most contributing stocks on the NIFTY50 index, jumping as much as 4.9% during the early trades.

Globally, the US stocks closed higher on Monday. Rallying iPhone-maker Apple shares supported the S&P 500 as the White House exempted tariffs on smartphones, semiconductors, computers and certain electronic items.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 312.08 points, or 0.78%, to 40,524.79, the S&P 500 rose 42.61 points, or 0.79%, to 5,405.97 and the Nasdaq Composite ended 107.03 points, or 0.64%, higher at 16,831.48.

Asian markets were mostly trading positively except for Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite. Japan’s Nikkei led the gains on Tuesday morning following the optimism on the auto tariff pause.

Japan's Nikkei gained over 1% with auto firm shares supporting the rally. The Kospi index was also up 0.97%. While China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.30% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index reversed early gains to trade 0.25% lower on Tuesday morning. 

Gold prices hit a new record high at $3,221 per ounce amid uncertainty about the fallout of the tariff war between the US and China.

As many as 2,533 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 2,271 stocks were trading in the green, only 199 in the red and 63 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of bulls.

Meanwhile, 26 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while only 9 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 81 stocks hit their upper circuits while 17 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 14.58% lower at 17.14 levels.

During the early trades, Nifty Midcap 100 jumped 1.99% to the 51,505.60 level, while Nifty Smallcap 100 outperformed the main indices, soaring 2.42% to the 16,076.60 mark.

As many as 529.1 crore equity shares of Bajaj Housing Finance were made eligible for trading following the end of the shareholder lock-in period, according to a note from Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research. These shares represent 64% of the company's total outstanding equity.