Pulse of the Street: A five-day rout makes market jittery

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI: Domestic equities were shaken by the ‘Trump factor’ throughout the week, leaving India the worst-performing major market globally as risk-off sentiment gripped investors. Markets struggled amid a trio of US-driven shocks.

Sentiment was hit by Friday’s announcement that US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signalled a delay in the India-US trade agreement. Concerns deepened as the proposed Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which threatens tariffs of up to 500% on countries still buying Russian oil, advanced in Congress, stoking concerns over India’s growth and market stability. The resulting sell-off was brutal.

In its sharpest weekly decline since 26 September 2025, the Nifty 50 shed 2.5% to settle at 25,683.30 on Friday, slipping below the psychologically significant 26,000 mark. Losses extended across all five trading sessions. Sentiment had also been rattled earlier in the week by the US military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, triggering a broad-based sectoral retreat.

While the broader market retreated, consumer durables emerged as the sole outlier rising 2.4% during the week, driven by festive demand spillover and upbeat Q3 expectations for Havells and Polycab, said Akhil Bharadwaj, senior partner at Alpha Capital. In contrast, oil and gas plunged 5.4%, followed by power and capital goods, which fell 4.4% and 2.5%, respectively. Tariff anxiety hit the oil and gas sector hardest, led by Reliance Industries’ 7.4% drop that erased nearly $15 billion in market capitalization, Bharadwaj noted.