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Sensex, Nifty trade marginally higher in early deals after negative start
Oct-17-2025

Indian equity benchmarks made a negative start on Friday following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight as well as weakness in Asian counterparts amid the escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China. However, soon markets wiped out their losses and entered into green terrain. Sensex and Nifty were trading marginally higher in early deals amid foreign fund inflows, as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers of shares worth Rs 997.29 crore. Traders took some encouragement as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that India has implemented a number of free trade agreements with developed nations and is in active dialogue for such pacts with nations including the US, Oman, and the EU. Though, upside remained capped ahead of index heavyweight Reliance Industries’ Q2 earnings to be out later in the day. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 83562.39, up by 94.73 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 83206.08 and 83630.29. There were 17 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining, while 2 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.11%, while Small cap index was up by 0.16%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.40%, FMCG up by 0.64%, Capital Goods up by 0.58%, Auto up by 0.51% and Industrials up by 0.32%, while IT down by 1.22%, TECK down by 0.64%, Oil & Gas down by 0.27%, Realty down by 0.16% and Energy down by 0.11% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Asian Paints up by 3.99%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.93%, Bharat Electronics up by 1.43%, Axis Bank up by 1.07% and Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles up by 0.92%. On the flip side, Eternal down by 2.37%, Infosys down by 1.48%, HCL Technologies down by 1.40%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.04% and Power Grid down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that India has implemented a number of free trade agreements (FTAs) with developed nations and is in active dialogue for such pacts with nations including the US, Oman, and the EU. India has implemented trade pacts with Australia, the UAE and EFTA bloc. It has also signed an agreement with the UK. He said ‘We have done free trade agreements (FTAs) with many developed countries in the last three years...We are in active dialogue with the US, EU, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Oman’. He added ‘It clearly shows that India is the favoured and preferred destination both for investment and for bilateral trade’.

He said with Brazil also, he has discussed expanding preferential trade agreement from its current level so that ‘we can’ in the future penetrate the South American market in a bigger way. The Indian official team is in Washington at present to hold trade talks with their US counterparts. The team will be there till October 17. In February this year, leaders of India and the US directed officials to negotiate a proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). They have fixed a deadline to conclude the first tranche of the pact by the fall (October-November) of 2025. So far, five rounds of negotiations have been completed. 

The proposed pact aims to more than double the bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 from the current $191 billion. The US remained India's largest trading partner for the fourth consecutive year in 2024-25, with bilateral trade valued at $131.84 billion ($86.5 billion exports). It accounts for about 18 per cent of India's total goods exports, 6.22 per cent in imports, and 10.73 per cent in the country's total merchandise trade. According to the commerce ministry data, India's merchandise exports to the US declined by 11.93 per cent to $5.46 billion in September due to the high tariffs imposed by Washington while imports increased by 11.78 per cent to $3.98 billion during the month.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 25618.90, up by 33.60 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 25508.60 and 25623.95. There were 30 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Asian Paints up by 3.91%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.89%, Bharat Electronics up by 1.36%, Nestle up by 1.28% and Axis Bank up by 1.03%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 4.27%, Eternal down by 2.27%, Infosys down by 1.41%, HCL Technologies down by 1.40% and JIO Financial Services down by 1.12% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 612.74 points or 1.27% to 47,665.00, Hang Seng declined 431.51 points or 1.7% to 25,457.00, Taiwan Weighted lost 173.36 points or 0.63% to 27,474.51, Jakarta Composite fell 134.89 points or 1.66% to 7,989.87, Shanghai Composite weakened 39.03 points or 1% to 3,877.20 and Straits Times was down by 22.02 points or 0.51% to 4,334.18, while KOSPI increased 3.73 points or 0.1% to 3,752.10.
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