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Sensex, Nifty struggle for direction in early deals; GDP data eyed
Aug-29-2025

Indian equity benchmarks made a negative start on Friday and turned volatile in early deals amid mounting concerns about the impact of U.S. tariffs on Indian goods and as investors adopt wait-and-watch approach ahead of release of India’s GDP data for the April-June quarter. Sensex and Nifty were struggling for direction and are trading flat with negative bias amid foreign fund outflows. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their selling spree for the fourth straight day, offloading equities worth Rs 3,856 crore on August 28. Traders took note of Former Commerce and Home Secretary G K Pillai’s statement that a steep 50 per cent tariff imposed by the US on shipments from India would have a very small impact on India's economic growth of about 50 basis points if exporters are unable to find alternative markets. However, downside remained capped as the government data showed that India's industrial production growth accelerated to a 4-month high of 3.5 per cent in July this year due to good performance of manufacturing sector.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mixed, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, ahead of the release of key U.S. inflation data later in the day that could impact the outlook for interest rates. Traders also digested highly anticipated earnings news from Nvidia, with the AI darling and market leader reporting second-quarter results that largely exceeded expectations. Back home, textile industry stocks were in focus as the Textile Ministry said that the Centre's decision to extend the import duty exemption on cotton until December 31, 2025 will strengthen India's position in export markets, reviving orders for small and medium enterprises as well as export-oriented units.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 80073.96, down by 6.61 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 79944.67 and 80277.68. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.52%, while Small cap index was down by 0.15%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 0.53% and Bankex up by 0.36%, while Realty down by 1.44%, Auto down by 0.97%, Utilities down by 0.88%, Power down by 0.80% and Metal down by 0.74% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Trent up by 2.59%, ITC up by 1.50%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.47%, Bharat Electronics up by 0.93% and Ultratech Cement up by 0.85%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.70%, Infosys down by 1.04%, NTPC down by 0.89%, Eternal down by 0.89% and Titan Company down by 0.76% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s industrial output growth, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), accelerated to a 4-month high of 3.5 per cent in July 2025 due to good performance of manufacturing sector. IIP had expanded by 5 per cent in July 2024. The country’s industrial output earlier recorded this level of growth at 3.9 per cent in March 2025. The National Statistics Office (NSO) in its revised figure for June kept the pace of industrial production growth unchanged at 1.5 per cent as against the provisional estimates released last month. During the April-July period of FY26, the country’s total industrial production grew by 2.3 per cent compared to 5.4 per cent a year ago.

The manufacturing sector, which comprises the largest component of the index, output growth rose to 5.4 per cent in July 2025 from 4.7 per cent in the year-ago month. Mining production contracted by 7.2 per cent against a growth of 3.8 per cent recorded a year ago. Power production rose by a meagre 0.6 per cent in July 2025 against 7.9 per cent in the year-ago period. The Indices of Industrial Production for the Manufacturing, Mining and Electricity sectors for the month of June 2025 stood at 156.9, 107.7 and 221.5 respectively.

Within the manufacturing sector, 14 out of 23 industry groups at NIC 2 digit-level have recorded a positive growth in July 2025 over July 2024. The top three positive contributors for the month of July 2025 are - ‘Manufacture of basic metals’ (12.7%), ‘Manufacture of electrical equipment’ (15.9%) and ‘Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products’ (9.5%).

As per use-based classification, the output of primary goods contracted by 1.7 per cent in July 2025 against 5.9 per cent growth a year earlier. The capital goods segment growth decelerated to 5 per cent in July 2025 from 11.7 per cent in the year-ago period. The expansion in the intermediate goods segment was 5.8 per cent in the month under review against 7 per cent a year ago. Infrastructure/construction reported a growth of 11.9 per cent in July 2025, up from a 5.5 per cent expansion in the year-ago period. Consumer durables (or white goods production) growth slowed to 7.7 per cent during the reporting month against a growth of 8.2 per cent in July 2024. In July 2025, consumer non-durables output recorded a meagre growth of 0.5 per cent as against a contraction of 4.2 per cent a year ago.

The indices stood at 147.6 for Primary Goods, 119.7 for Capital Goods, 174.1 for Intermediate Goods and 201.0 for Infrastructure/ Construction Goods for the month of July 2025. Further, the indices for Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables stand at 136.3 and 147.8 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 24490.95, down by 9.95 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 24466.60 and 24564.35. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Trent up by 2.61%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.58%, Shriram Finance up by 1.34%, ITC up by 1.27% and Ultratech Cement up by 1.13%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.76%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.28%, Eternal down by 1.27%, Infosys down by 1.24% and Bajaj Auto down by 1.10% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mixed; Hang Seng rose 177.18 points or 0.7% to 25,176.00, Taiwan Weighted gained 135.6 points or 0.56% to 24,372.05, Straits Times added 15.05 points or 0.35% to 4,268.83 and Shanghai Composite was up by 6.16 points or 0.16% to 3,849.76. On the other hand, Jakarta Composite slipped 165.37 points or 2.08% to 7,786.72, Nikkei 225 fell 74.79 points or 0.17% to 42,754.00 and KOSPI was down by 3.54 points or 0.11% to 3,192.78.
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