Market Opening Bell: NIFTY50 opens below 22,400, SENSEX down 400 pts ahead of RBI policy announcement

The Indian stock market on Wednesday, April 9, began the session negative, following the global markets, as investors remained concerned over the escalated trade war situation.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing 104% tariffs on China after it failed to withdraw the retaliatory tariffs. This has caused jitteriness among investors worldwide.

The Indian market also remained cautious ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy meeting outcome, which is expected later today.

At 9:30 AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX had declined 409.20 points, or 0.55%, at the 73,817.88 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 22,389.55 level, falling 146.30 points, or 0.65%.

Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Dr Reddy’s and Hindalco were the biggest losing stocks, tumbling as much as 4.45% on the NIFTY50 index.

The broader market also slipped below 1% during the opening session.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth ₹4,994.24 crore on a net basis on Tuesday, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹3,097 crore, according to exchange data.

Globally, the US markets on Tuesday witnessed wild moves as trade war escalation dominated the news. The Dow Jones, NASDAQ and S&P 500 opened nearly 3% higher on Tuesday on reports of negotiations with key countries on tariffs but pared all gains at the end to close down.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 320.01 points, or 0.84%, to close at 37,645.59, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 335.35 points, or 2.15%, to end at 15,267.91.

The Asian markets also opened lower on Wednesday. The Japanese, Hong Kong, opened 3% lower after another wild session in the US overnight. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tumbled 1.5%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 declined 3.66%. South Korea’s Kospi index also tanked 1.28%. However, the Shanghai Composite was trading 0.24% higher.

Meanwhile, the crude oil prices hit a four-year low on Tuesday on demand concerns due to the escalation in the trade war between China and the US.

Brent futures settled down $1.39, or 2.16%, at $62.82 a barrel. The US West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled down $1.12, or 1.85%, at $59.58.

As many as 2,374 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which only 1,903 stocks were trading in the negative, 419 in the green and 52 shares remained unchanged.

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

As many as 20 stocks hit their one-year low in the early trade, while only 10 stocks touched their 52-week high.

Further, 15 stocks hit their lower circuits, while 37 hit their upper circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 3.09% higher at 21.08 levels.

The broader market slipped into negative during the early trades, with the Nifty Smallcap 100 trading 1.05% lower at 15,227.80 levels and the Nifty Midcap 100 at 49,382.55 levels, declining 0.91%.

Except for Nifty FMCG (0.69%) and Nifty Auto (0.30%), all the other sectoral gauges were trading lower on Wednesday. Nifty IT was the biggest tanking sector, falling 2.26%, followed by Nifty Metal (-1.87%) and Nifty Midsmall IT and Telecom (-1.79%).

The Kolkata-based jewellery retailer reported a 23% year-on-year (YoY) retail growth despite rising gold prices in the January-March quarter of FY25, due to a robust wedding season.

The company on Tuesday said its consolidated net profit more than doubled to ₹94.20 crore in the quarter that ended March 2025.

It posted a ₹41.62 crore net profit for the January- March quarter of FY24.