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Below the Quote on Daily market commentary by Mr. Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Research, Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd

Nifty 50 opened gap down (-180 points), following a sharp sell-off in global markets after US announced reciprocal tariffs on over 180 countries including India. However, the index recovered nearly 100 points to close with a loss of just 82 points at 23,250 (-0.4%). The US reciprocal tariff of 26% on India is higher than expected, but this tariff is relatively lower compared to that levied on countries like China (34% + 20% earlier), Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%), Indonesia (32%) and Bangladesh (37%) which compete with India for the export share; thus improving India’s potential export competitiveness. Overall, we believe that the impact of reciprocal tariffs on India will be limited on a national basis. India’s exports in the six most vulnerable sectors amount to only 1.1% of India’s GDP. There is possibility that the impact could further be reduced as India is in the process of negotiating a bilateral agreement with the U.S. The broader market indices showed resilience, with Nifty Midcap100 and Smallcap100 ending in the green. Amongst sectors, Nifty IT was the top loser, plunging 4% on concerns over reduced IT spending in the US as a result of inflationary pressure expected to be caused by the tariffs. Auto index was down by 1% as President Trump confirmed the earlier imposition of 25% tariff on automobile and auto-part imports to the US from today. Meanwhile, the Pharma index gained over 2% as the sector was exempted from tariffs for now. Textile stocks gained as India’s textile sector could be a beneficiary in the near term with higher US tariffs on some of the key competing countries. With the major event now done-with, market focus will now shift towards the RBI’s monetary policy on 9th April and the Q4FY25 earnings season kicking off from next week.   

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