MUMBAI, Jan 8, 2026, 12:06 IST
- Indian shares extended losses to a fourth session as tariff worries and foreign outflows weighed.
- Traders watched the 26,000–26,300 zone on the Nifty after GIFT Nifty signalled a soft open.
- Nuvama’s Aakash K Hindocha flagged ABB, Fortis and Petronet as buy ideas with targets and stop-losses.
Indian shares slipped again on Thursday, with the Nifty 50 down 0.18% at 26,093.35 and the Sensex off 0.13% at 84,847.3 by 9:55 a.m. local time, as tariff worries and foreign fund selling kept risk appetite thin.
The move matters because investors are heading into a key stretch of quarterly results while the market’s biggest driver has drifted back to geopolitics. Traders are watching New Delhi’s negotiations with Washington, after U.S. President Donald Trump warned of higher tariffs on Indian goods over India’s Russian oil purchases.
Foreign investors sold 15.28 billion rupees ($170.26 million) of Indian shares on Wednesday, taking January’s outflows to $694 million after record selling in 2025, provisional data showed. The U.S. has already imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Indian goods, with half of those penalties tied to Russian crude imports.
GIFT Nifty — a futures contract that tracks the Nifty 50 before India’s cash market opens — was down 40 points at 26,186.50 ahead of the session. India VIX, a gauge of expected swings, eased to 9.95, and a technical view in The Economic Times put the near-term range at 26,000–26,300; the paper also cited net foreign selling of Rs 1,528 crore versus domestic buying of Rs 2,889 crore and said the rupee rose 31 paise to 89.87 per dollar on suspected RBI intervention.
Fifteen of 16 sector indexes fell in early trade, with the broader small-cap and mid-cap gauges also lower. Metals led losses and IT stocks weakened; Gland Pharma climbed after U.S. approval for an eye-treatment drug, while Balaji Amines jumped after Maharashtra cleared it for industrial subsidies tied to an expansion.
“Geopolitics and global trade have cast a shadow of chronic risk aversion for equity markets,” said analysts led by Abhishek Saraf at Motilal Oswal Financial Services. The conclusion of the long-pending India-U.S. trade deal would be a key catalyst for an upside move in Indian markets, they added.
Some brokers are still hunting for trades inside the pullback. Aakash K Hindocha, deputy vice president for wealth-management research at Nuvama Professional Clients Group, said “dips below Wednesday’s low of 26060 are likely to get bought into with 26k acting as support,” and named ABB, Fortis and Petronet as buy ideas, with stop-loss levels (exit prices meant to cap losses) and targets. The Times of India
