India's Sensex sheds 2.95% - but still better than Asian peers

Dubai: The Sensex, the key India stock market index, shed 2,226 points Monday, or 2.95% - but even then the feeling among investors is that it could all have been quite bad.

Check out Nikkei (down 7.83%), the Hang Seng (whipsawed into a 13.22% decline), the Shanghai reading (down 7.34%) and Singapore (a drop of 7.46%).

“Investors in India still seem to believe that the government will soon come up with some sort of negotiated deal with the US on the 26% tariff,” said an analyst. “That hope is what could be holding back the Sensex and Nifty (which was down 3.24% on Monday) from going into a deeper swoon.”

Based on the US tariff setting, India’s been hit with 26%, but its key exports to the US, pharmaceuticals, has not been placed in the net. At least for now.

Even then, the Sensex drop is the biggest since June 2024.

According to Milan Vaishnav, Consulting Technical Analyst at Chartwizard.ae, “The European indices are down in the range of 4% to 6%.

“It is important to note that the Dow Futures, even if they are trading in the negative, have recovered nearly 800 points from their low. Likewise, SPX futures have recovered over 190 points from their lows.

“With Indian markets, all sectors ended in the red. The FMCG declined the least by 1.1% while the metal index was the worst performer, losing 6.75%. The pharma index fared relatively better, losing just 2.75%.”

Among individual stocks, the FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever was the sole gainer from the Nifty 50 Index.

The worst three performers from the Nifty 50 universe were Trent, Tata Steel, and JSW Steel, which lost 14.77%, 7.77%, and 7.50%, respectively.

The US has an additional 25% import duty on all steel and aluminum imports into that country.