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In the opening trade, the Nifty 50 declines 1.26% to 23,565.70, slipping below the 23,600 mark, while the BSE Sensex plummets around 1,000 points to trade at 75,890.57.
Stock Market Today.
Market Updates Today: Indian equity benchmarks traded sharply lower on Wednesday morning, with selling pressure visible across large-caps, mid-caps and small-caps, even as crude oil again crossed $100 per barrel amid worsening Iran-US-Israel war.
In the opening trade, the Nifty 50 declined 1.26% to 23,565.70, slipping below the 23,600 mark. The index had closed at 23,866.85 in the previous session.
The BSE Sensex plummeted around 1,000 points to trade at 75,890.57 in the early trade.
The broader market also remained under pressure. The Nifty Next 50 fell 1.71%, while the Nifty Midcap Select declined 1.81%, indicating stronger selling in mid-sized companies. The Nifty Smallcap 100 dropped 1.73%, showing that risk appetite weakened across the broader market.
Banking stocks were among the major drags. The Nifty Bank index slipped 1.67% to 54,803, while the Nifty Financial Services index declined 1.52%, reflecting weakness across both private and public sector lenders.
Sectorally, most indices traded in the red. Nifty Auto emerged as the worst performer, falling 2.40%, followed by Realty (-2.15%), Media (-2.15%), Consumer Durables (-2.21%) and PSU Bank (-2.06%).
Defensive sectors showed relatively better resilience. Nifty IT declined just 0.49%, making it the least affected sector, while Pharma (-0.86%) and Oil & Gas (-0.85%) also limited losses compared with the broader market.
Meanwhile, market volatility rose sharply. India VIX jumped 4.35% to 21.98, signalling heightened uncertainty and a rise in hedging activity among traders.
The NSE Nifty remains well below its one-month level of 25,693 and also below the one-week level of 24,480, suggesting continued short-term weakness in the market.
On a longer horizon, however, the index is still above its 52-week low of 21,743, though significantly below the 52-week high of 26,373, highlighting that the market is currently in a corrective phase.
Overall, the data suggests broad-based selling across sectors and market capitalisation segments, with rising volatility and weakness in financial stocks weighing heavily on benchmark indices.
V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments Ltd, said, “External headwinds have pushed the market into a weak zone. With the war continuing to rage with no signs of let-up and Brent crude again bouncing back to $100 levels, the weakness is likely to persist. Even though DIIs are continuously buying in the market, DII buying is not helping the market to recover since FIIs are sustained sellers and show no signs of reversing their strategy in this uncertain global environment.”
For investors, markets can be very frustrating during certain times. This is one such time. The lesson from market history is that attitude and temperament are important in these trying times. Experiences from previous geopolitical conflicts tell us that markets bounce back smartly once the conflicts get over. Therefore, investors should remain invested and continue with systematic investment plans, he added.
“Long-term investors can use market weakness to slowly accumulate high-quality bluechips across sectors. This is also the right time to churn portfolios in favour of high-quality stocks,” Vijayakumar said.
March 12, 2026, 09:28 IST
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