Indian equity benchmarks witnessed optimistic performance on Monday and ended with gains of over a percent despite escalating trade tensions with the United States. Since morning, markets maintained their gains as traders preferred to buy stocks. Traders turned their focus towards domestic Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation figures to be out tomorrow. In late afternoon session, indices gained traction and ended the session near day’s high levels.

Some of the important factors in today’s trade: 

India negotiating trade agreements with several countries, including the US: Traders took support as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal stated that India is negotiating trade agreements with several countries, including the US, and stressed that many nations are keen to engage with New Delhi on the trade front. He also exuded confidence that India's exports in 2025-26 will exceed last year's figures. In 2024-25, India's goods and services exports touched $825 billion.

Foreign funds inflows: Sentiments were positive as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were the net buyer on Friday’s trade, with net buying of Rs 1,932.81 crore.  

India's forex reserves down by $9.32 billion to $688.87 billion: Investors overlooked RBI’s data showed that India's forex reserves dropped by $9.32 billion to $688.87 billion for the week ended August 1 in one of the highest declines in the recent past.

Global front: European markets were trading mostly in red as investors looked ahead to a Russia-U.S. summit this week that could help stop the war in Ukraine. Asian markets ended mixed amid concern about the economic impact of US President Donald Trump's ‘reciprocal tariffs’ targeting more than 90 trading partner nations.

The BSE Sensex ended at 80,604.08, up by 746.29 points or 0.93% after trading in a range of 79,772.46 and 80,636.05. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional) 

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.79%, while Small cap index was up by 0.35%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.86%, Bankex up by 1.13%, Healthcare up by 1.12%, PSU up by 1.07% and Auto was up by 1.03%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.46% were the only losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.22%, Eternal up by 2.73%, Trent up by 2.33%, SBI up by 2.04% and Ultratech Cement up by 1.95%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 0.23%, Bharat Electronics down by 0.20%, ICICI Bank down by 0.05% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.02% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, countering Donald Trump's dead economy jibe, sixteenth Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said that the Indian economy is growing at 7% and more than that in dollar terms. Talking about India's trade protectionism, he said that there may be protectionist measures but the country is substantially open.

Recently, the US President Donald Trump had remarked that India is a dead economy. Trump said ‘I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care’. Trump later imposed 50% tariff on Indian goods imported to the US with a brief exemption list. 

Further, talking about free trade agreement between India and European Union, Panagariya suggested that the country should aggressively pursue the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. He also emphasized a need to bring reforms in land and labour market and reducing regulations to accelerate its growth trajectory. 

The CNX Nifty ended at 24,585.05, up by 221.75 points or 0.91% after trading in a range of 24,347.45 and 24,600.85. There were 45 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Enterprises up by 4.36%, Tata Motors up by 3.17%, Eternal up by 2.69%, Grasim Industries up by 2.58% and Apollo Hospital up by 2.31%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.94%, Bharat Electronics down by 0.27%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.06% and Titan Company down by 0.01% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European markets were trading mostly in red; France’s CAC fell 22.4 points or 0.29% to 7,720.60 and Germany’s DAX was down by 51.46 points or 0.21% to 24,111.40. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 20.32 points or 0.22% to 9,116.05.