Sensex Falls 250 Points, Nifty 50 Sinks Below 24700, Small- And Mid-caps Outperform

Stock Market Today: The domestic equity benchmark indices opened on a subdued note on June 3, 2025. Geopolitical uncertainties, global trade deals, and a likely rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during its upcoming meeting on June 4-6 heavily weighed on investor sentiment. At 9:25 AM, the Sensex was trading lower by 245.99 points, or 0.30 per cent, at 81,127.76. Likewise, the Nifty 50 was down by 60.35 points or 0.24 per cent, at 24,656.25.

Earlier, in the previous session, gains led by stronger-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) data were offset by weakness in IT and metal stocks. At close, the Sensex was down 77.26 points, or 0.09 per cent, at 81,373.75, while the Nifty 50 was down 34.10 points, or 0.14 per cent, at 24,716.60.

The broader market in today’s session, however, was upbeat, outperforming the benchmark indices. The Nifty Midcap 100, around the same time, was trading some odd 0.3 per cent higher, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 was up by over 0.6 per cent.

The Nifty 500 index, which captures about 92.3 per cent of the free-float market capitalisation of the stocks listed on the NSE, was, however, trading flat, swinging in both the directions.

On the sectoral front, while metals, realty, oil and gas showed strength, private banks, FMCG, and IT appeared weak in early trade. 

The Nifty Metal was up the most, gaining over 0.60 per cent. On the other hand, the Nifty Private Bank index was down by around 0.55 per cent. This also dragged the Nifty Bank index, which tracks the performance of top 12 public and private banking stocks. It was trading lower by 0.26 per cent, below the 55,800 level.

Sensex, Nifty 50: Top Gainers And Losers

From Nifty 50, Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, SBI Life insurance, Hindustan Unilever, and Bharti Airtel were the top losers, while Shriram Finance, Eternal (formerly Zomato), ONGC, Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, and Hindalco were the biggest gainers.

Among the 30-pack Sensex stocks, Adani ports, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki, and Bharti Airtel were the top drags. On the other hand, Eternal, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank and Asian Paints led the gains in the index.

Global Stocks Gain As US-China Trade Talks Show Signs of Progress

The stock market in the US closed higher on June 2, 2025, as investors shrugged off fresh trade tensions brewing between the US and China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 35.41 points, or 0.08 per cent, to close at 42,305.48, while the S&P 500 gained 24.25 points, or 0.41 per cent, to end at 5,935.94. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 128.85 points, or 0.67 per cent, to finish at 19,242.61.

A day earlier, the US had accused China of breaching their temporary trade deal. In response, China has rejected the claims and instead blamed the US for failing to meet its obligations.

Meanwhile, in the latest development on the US-China trade deal, the Office of the US Trade Representative has extended tariff exclusions on certain products from Section 301 tariffs on China.

Section 301 tariffs are a set of trade penalties the US had imposed on Chinese imports in response to what it called unfair practices around technology transfer and intellectual property. Following a 2018 investigation, the US began imposing tariffs in 2019 on roughly $370 billion worth of Chinese goods. The tariffs on Section 301 are in the range 7.50-25 per cent. A four-year review of these measures led to additional tariff hikes, up to 100 per cent, on certain products, and introduced some exclusions, particularly for certain solar panel and industrial machinery. More tariff hikes are also currently under consideration. The Section 301 China tariffs cover a wide range of goods from China, including electronics, machinery, furniture, toys, plastics, textiles, and many other consumer products.

Asian markets were trading largely in the green in early trade on June 3 on the progression of the US-China trade deals along with other global and domestic factors.

The Hong Kong-based Hang Seng was trading higher by 1.30 per cent, China’s SSE Composite was up by around 0.50 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi traded around unchanged levels. Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded slightly up in the green, higher by 0.20 per cent, while the broader Topix was marginally in the red territory.