Stock Market Alert: Nifty, Sensex Fall; What Is Driving Indian Stocks Down In The Opening Bell?

Stock Market Today: Investors are gearing up for a turbulent market ride today as Nifty and Sensex opened in red on Thursday, April 17. Despite defying the global market trend at the beginning of the week, the Indian benchmark indices were hit as the volatility gripped the global markets across the world.

Nifty 50 opened 0.29% lower, but later crashed more than 120 points to 23320 points. BSE Sensex opened 141 points lower and further plunged to 76,730.37 by 9:30 am today.

What Is Driving Indian Stocks Down in Opening Bell?

Major IT stocks, including Wipro, TCS, LTI, Mindtree, and Sonata Software, emerged as the major laggards of the Indian stock market today during opening. Nifty Bank held the ground for the Indian bourses and remained in green. Nifty Bank and Nifty Financials were also strong during the opening session today. All the broad market indices, including Nifty SmallCap 100, Nifty MidCap 100, etc, were in red. The stock market investors will be keenly waiting for Q4 results today including that of Infosys. After lower-than-expected earnings and FY26 guidance by IT heavyweights like TCS and Wipro, all eyes are on Infosys to guage where things will be in the coming months.

The Indian stock market opening aligned with Gift Nifty's movement, which indicated a gap-down start for Nifty and Sensex. The Indian benchmark indices ended in green on Wednesday after Tuesday's stellar rally. Moreover, FIIs turned net buyers for the first time, indicating a positive sentiment in the market.

US Stock Market Today

The US stock markets continued to decline as investors fail to identify any positive cue amid US President Donald Trump's tariffs uncertainty and concerns about widening trade conflict between US and China.

The Nasdaq plunged 516.01 points or 3.1 percent to 16,307.16, the S&P 500 tumbled 120.93 points or 2.2 percent to 5,275.70 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 699.57 points or 1.7 percent to 39,669.39.

Asian Stock Markets Today

Asian stock markets including Nikkei 225, Topix Index, etc opened flat on Thursday.
The Nikkei 225 Index was trading in green and was nominally higher at 34203 points. Whereas, Kospi 50 Index was nearly 17 points higher at 2464 points. According to Antique Brokerage investment, attention is now fixed on upcoming trade talks between Japan and the U.S., as Tokyo pushes for the complete removal of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Technology and consumer stocks led the losses, with sharp declines from Disco Corp (-8%), Advantest (-6.6%), Tokyo Electron (- 1.5%), Nintendo (-2.6%), and Fast Retailing (-1.2%).

FIIs Turned Net Buyers in India For First Time in Month

The benchmark index Nifty 50 ended slightly higher above 23,400 points, whereas Sensex closed the session at 77,044.29. Nifty Midcap, and Smallcap outperformed on Wednesday amid market volatility.

"Indian market showed resilience, despite the global market cues being flat to negative as US tariff uncertainties persist. Positive investor sentiment was supported by better than expected data on India's retail inflation (CPI), which eased to a six-year low of 3.34% in March against 3.61% in February. Further, the FIIs turned net buyers yesterday for the first time this month, with inflows exceeding ₹6,000 crore. On the sectoral front, banking stocks witnessed a smart rally, extending gains for the third straight session as the cool-off in retail inflation boosted expectations of further rate cuts by the RBI," noted Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Research, Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

"We expect continued positive momentum for Indian markets on the back of progress in US-India trade settlement as the two countries signed the terms of reference for the first part of the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). However, the escalation of tariff war between US and China could induce some volatility. Further, market will be closely watching the upcoming Q4 results which includes those from Infosys, HDFC AMC, HDFC Life Insurance to be announced tomorrow," he added.