PSU Bank, oil & gas and realty shares declined while IT and consumer durables shares advanced

At 13:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex declined 542.62 points or 0.66% to 81,727.16. The Nifty 50 index tumbled 274.20 points or 0.79% to 25,087.30.

The broader market underperformed the frontline indices. The BSE 150 Mid-Cap index declined 1.03% and the BSE 250 Small-Cap index slipped 0.93%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 1,711 shares rose and 2,215 shares fell. A total of 217 shares were unchanged.

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, rallied 5.02% to 14.32.

MCX Gold futures for the 5 February 2026 settlement fell 4.58% to Rs 1,42,800, while MCX Silver futures for the 5 March 2026 settlement declined 8.79% to Rs 2,66,269.

Gainers & Losers:

Titan Company (up 3.45%), Wipro (up 3.14%), Max Healthcare Institute (up 2.74%), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (up 2.53%) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.22%) were the major Nifty50 gainers.

Hindalco Industries (down 4.70%), Coal India (down 3.99%), State Bank of India (down 3.98%), Bharat Electronics (BEL) (down 3.90%) and Oil & Natural Gas Corporations of India (ONGC) (down 3.62%) were the major Nifty50 losers.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries rose 1.22% after it has reported 16.03% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 3,368.81 crore on a 13.49% increase in revenue to Rs 15,520.54 crore in Q3 FY26 over Q3 FY25.

Union Budget 2026

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman used the Union Budget 2026 to underline a reform-heavy path built around fiscal consolidation, job creation and sharper global competitiveness. The Centre reiterated its medium-term debt sustainability goal, with the FRBM roadmap indicating a steady decline in the debt-to-GDP ratio and projecting central government debt at around 55.6% in BE 2026 27 versus 56.1% in RE 2025 26, framing the glide towards a sub 50% target by 2030 as a policy anchor rather than a hard statutory number. On the deficit side, the government stuck to its consolidation track, with the fiscal gap seen at 4.4% of GDP in RE FY26 and budgeted to narrow to 4.3% in BE FY27, a sequence that keeps the post pandemic promises on course while still giving room for capex-driven growth.

On the expenditure and borrowing front, the Budget raised capital expenditure to about Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY27, signalling another year of heavy public investment in infrastructure, especially in emerging tier 2 and tier 3 growth centres that are starting to look more like mini metros than satellite towns. To fund the gap, the Centre plans net market borrowing of Rs 11.54 lakh crore through dated securities, with the balance coming from small savings and other sources, in line with the glide path indicated in the Budget 2025 26 speech. That combination—slower deficit, still high capex and a calibrated borrowing programme—is meant to keep bond yields contained while nudging the baton from public to private capex over the medium term.

Markets, however, zeroed in on the tax tweaks. On the indirect side, the Finance Bill, 2026 sharply increased the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivatives: STT on futures goes up from 0.02% to 0.05% of the traded value, while STT on options rises from 0.10% to 0.15% of the premium (and from 0.125% to 0.15% when options are exercised). That makes high-churn F&O strategies more expensive at the margin and nudges some speculative volume off the table, even as it modestly boosts revenue. On the direct tax side, the Income-tax Act, 2025 is slated to take full effect from 1 April 2026, with fresh slab structures, harmonised surcharge rules and a cleaned up TDS/TCS and penalty framework, all aimed at reducing litigation and making the law more “plain English” for taxpayers.

The Budget also delivered compliance relief via Tax Collected at Source (TCS) rationalisation under the LRS and travel bucket. TCS on overseas tour packages has been pared down to a flat 2%, replacing the earlier structure that included higher 5–20% slabs and thresholds. Similarly, TCS on remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme for education and medical treatment drops to 2% from 5%, with a higher trigger threshold, easing the cash flow pinch on families sending children abroad or paying for medical procedures. Alongside, the Bill tightens the architecture for revised and updated returns—allowing revised returns up to the end of the assessment year (or 12 months in the new Act), with a modest fee if filed late—while keeping the extended “updated return” window of up to four years, albeit at a steep additional tax to discourage strategic under reporting.

For cross border and enforcement issues, the Budget has carved out a targeted Foreign Assets of Small Taxpayers Disclosure Scheme, 2026. The scheme ring fences smaller cases—undisclosed foreign assets and income up to defined ceilings—into a one time, time bound window where taxpayers can come clean by paying 30% tax plus a 100% penalty on that tax on previously untaxed foreign assets or income, or a flat Rs 1 lakh fee in benign cases where foreign assets bought out of already taxed income were not reported in the foreign asset schedule. In return, declarants get immunity from further tax, penalty and prosecution under the Black Money Act on the declared items. The exact opening and closing dates will be notified separately, but the policy signal is clear: clean up small legacy foreign asset issues before the information exchange net tightens further.

On the business tax side, several structural tweaks stand out. First, supply of manpower is now explicitly included in the statutory definition of “work” for TDS purposes, putting manpower contracts clearly under the contractor TDS net at the familiar 1%–2% slabs depending on the payer’s status. Second, the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) regime has been recalibrated: the MAT rate in the old corporate tax regime is trimmed to 14% and treated as a final tax, while companies moving into the new lower rate regime are allowed to use their legacy MAT credits under the old law, but with a tight 25% cap on the amount of MAT credit that can be set off against normal tax in any one year and a 15 year sunset for utilisation. That balances taxpayer expectations on MAT credit with the government’s desire to avoid MAT shielded “zero tax” years under the new regime.

For non resident and digital economy players, the government has doubled down on India as a data and cloud hub. Through amendments to the exemption schedules, qualifying foreign companies that deliver global cloud or data centre services by procuring capacity from “specified” Indian data centres—which themselves must be owned and operated by Indian companies, notified by the Centre and meet detailed conditions—can enjoy a long duration tax exemption on such income, available up to the tax year ending 31 March 2047. The idea is to attract global cloud majors to build onshore stacks on top of Indian owned infrastructure, without triggering immediate tax friction on the foreign service entity’s income sourced from those data centre services.

The Budget also rationalises a few smaller but high friction levies. On the collection side, TCS rates on scrap and alcoholic liquor for human consumption are unified at 2%, down from higher earlier rates, giving a modest relief to cash flow sensitive sectors like metals trade and liquor distribution while keeping traceability intact. On capital markets, the long criticised buyback tax is being redesigned: rather than a blunt corporate level levy, the Bill proposes an additional capital gains tax on promoter level gains arising from buybacks, at differentiated rates for domestic and foreign promoters, while non promoter shareholders simply pay normal capital gains tax. That structure softens the blow for retail holders and aligns with the policy goal of penalising aggressive promoter buyback engineering more than ordinary investors.

Beyond taxes, the Budget leans hard into manufacturing, logistics and services as growth engines. Customs schedules have been overhauled to remove rate clutter, cut or eliminate basic customs duty on a basket of critical minerals and components for electronics, clean tech, batteries, telecom and shipping, and amend rates for shipbuilding, airports and select agri linked products, all with an eye on domestic value addition and supply chain resilience. Infrastructure plans—from PPP pipelines, a new asset monetisation plan and multimodal connectivity under PM Gati Shakti to continued support for Jal Jeevan, urban challenge funds and maritime corridors—are meant to keep the public investment cycle humming even as the deficit comes down. On the services and social side, the government has layered in measures such as a fresh Rs 10,000 crore fund of funds for startups, expanded skilling and research allocations, and sector specific pushes in tourism, medical tourism and urban livelihoods, framing the entire package as an attempt to deliver both hard infrastructure growth and more inclusive, employment rich development.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Bajaj Auto shed 0.87%. The company’s standalone net profit increased 18.68% to Rs 2,502.81 crore on 18.84% jump in revenue from operations to Rs 15,220.33 crore in Q3 FY26 over Q3 FY25.

VST Tillers Tractors advanced 1.27% after the company reported a 53.89% surge in total sales to 5,257 units in January 2026, up from 3,416 units sold in January 2025.

Meesho fell 4.97% after the company's consolidated net loss widened to Rs 490.68 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with a loss of Rs 37.43 crore in Q3 FY25. Net sales rose 31.32% YoY to Rs 3,517.60 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 2,678.64 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Steel Strips Wheels (SSWL) advanced 0.66% after the company reported a net turnover of Rs 480.03 crore for January 2026, marking a 17.32% year-on-year (YoY) increase compared to Rs 409.16 crore recorded in January 2025.

R R Kabel rose 1.10% after the company reported growth in profit and revenue for the December quarter. On a consolidated basis, net profit rose 72.4% YoY to Rs 118.2 crore in Q3 FY26, compared with Rs 68.6 crore in Q3 FY25.

Relaxo Footwears fell 2.06% after the company reported a 19.6% decline in net profit to Rs 26.54 crore, despite a 0.2% rise in net sales to Rs 668.03 crore in Q3 FY26 over Q3 FY25.

Escorts Kubota advanced 2.29% after the company’s Agri Machinery Business in January 2026 sold 9,799 tractors registering a growth of 46.9% as against 6,669 tractors sold in January 2025.

Global Markets:

On Friday, U.S stocks witnessed some profit taking, with technology shares remaining in a funk, even as investors largely approved of President Donald Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve.

The S&P 500 fell 0.43% to finish at 6,939.03, its third straight down day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 179 points, or 0.36%, to settle at 48,892.47. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed, dropping 0.94%, to end the day at 23,461.82. All three indexes fell more than 1% at session lows.

Spot gold and silver dropped around 9% and 28%, respectively. Over the past year, gold and silver futures have soared about 67% and 142%, respectively.

Warsh’s selection was likely to ease concern about Fed independence because of his experience as a Fed governor and strong stance at times against inflation. While he is likely to push for lower rates in short term as Trump wants, the financial markets view him as someone who wouldn’t always follow the president’s direction and maintain credibility for monetary policy.