On Friday, September 26, 2025, India’s leading stock market indices, the Sensex and Nifty, opened lower, largely pulled down by a slump in pharmaceutical shares and a continuous outflow of funds from foreign investors.
Adding to this bearish sentiment were growing concerns over the U.S. H-1B visa fee hikes and a generally weak performance across global markets.
Market experts note that investor focus is sharply fixed on the domestic pharmaceutical sector. This follows a significant announcement from the Trump Administration: a staggering 100% tariff on imported branded or patented pharmaceutical products, set to begin on October 1. This new tariff comes right after a substantial increase in U.S. H-1B visa fees, which has already led to considerable selling pressure on IT sector stocks in recent trading sessions, as explained by Ponmudi R, CEO of Enrich Money, an online trading and wealth technology firm.
During early trading, the 30-share BSE Sensex fell by 329.66 points, settling at 80,830.02, while the broader 50-share NSE Nifty recorded a drop of 105.7 points, reaching 24,785.15.
Among the Sensex constituents, Sun Pharma saw a decline of over 3%. Other significant losers included Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Power Grid, HCL Technologies, and Tata Steel.
Conversely, a few stocks managed to defy the downward trend, with Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, ITC, and Trent emerging as notable gainers.
Across Asian markets, the trend remained weak, as South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei 225, Shanghai’s SSE Composite, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng indices all registered losses.
This regional weakness mirrored the previous day’s performance in U.S. markets, which also closed down on Thursday.
Exchange data revealed that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) continued their selling spree, divesting equities valued at ₹4,995.42 crore on Thursday.
V. K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments Ltd., warned that ‘the sustained FII selling may keep the market under pressure.’
Despite the overall market dip, the global oil benchmark Brent crude saw a modest increase of 0.17%, trading at $69.54 per barrel.
The previous day, Thursday, September 25, 2025, also witnessed significant declines, with the Sensex plummeting 555.95 points (0.68%) to close at 81,159.68, and the Nifty dropping 166.05 points (0.66%) to end at 24,890.85.