Sensex, Nifty Tumble After Monday's Ceasefire Rally

(RTTNews) - Indian shares tumbled on Tuesday, a day after benchmark indexes Sensex and Nifty recorded their sharpest rally in over four years, following a tentative ceasefire between India and Pakistan over the weekend.

Markets paused for breath after Prime Minister said the operation is the new normal and that India had only kept its actions against Pakistan in abeyance, with future steps depending on Pakistan's behavior.

Modi described Operation Sindoor as India's new policy against terrorism and warned Pakistan that India will not succumb to nuclear blackmail.

Meanwhile, it is feared that a temporary tariff de-escalation between the U.S. and China could narrow India's export edge.

The benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex slumped 1,281.68 points, or 1.55 percent, to 81,148.22 while the broader NSE Nifty index plummeted 34.35 points, or 1.39 percent, to 24,578.35.

Second-line stocks bucked the weak trend, with the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes rising 0.2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was strong on the BSE, with 2,562 shares rising while 1,400 shares declined and 139 shares closed unchanged.

Among the prominent decliners, Tata Motors, ITC, NTPC, IndusInd Bank, Bharti Airtel, TCS, HCL Technologies, Power Grid Corp, Eternal and Infosys lost 2-4 percent.

Defense stocks attracted broad-based buying after Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the need for greater military self-reliance in his first address to the nation after Operation Sindoor.

Hindustan Aeronautics jumped 3.8 percent, Bharat Dynamics soared 11.2 percent, Bharat Electronics surged 4 percent, Zen Technologies added 5 percent and Data Patterns (India) climbed a little over 4 percent.