Nifty slips below 25,000 in Muhurat as Samvat 2083 opens on a mixed note

Equity benchmarks closed marginally lower in the one-hour Muhurat Trading session on Sunday. | Photo Credit: iStockphoto

Equity benchmarks closed marginally lower in the one-hour Muhurat Trading session on Sunday, snapping a seven-session winning streak, as markets entered Samvat 2083 on a cautious note following a year of sharp underperformance.

The Nifty 50 fell 43.95 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 24,986.40, slipping just below the 25,000 mark after opening at 25,070 and touching an intraday high of 25,131.85. The BSE Sensex eased 28.62 points, or 0.04 per cent, to 80,999.40. On the BSE, 3,253 stocks advanced against 947 decliners, with 130 stocks hitting 52-week highs.

Sectoral performance was mixed. Pharma and media led gains, each rising over 1 per cent. Sun Pharma topped Nifty gainers at 2.96 per cent, followed by Tata Steel at 2.09 per cent and ONGC at 1.31 per cent. SBI Life (-1.11 per cent), IndiGo (-1.07 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (-1.03 per cent) were the top laggards.

Sunday’s session came on the back of an extraordinary rally, the Nifty had gained 8.58 per cent in the week ended November 6, its strongest weekly performance since February 2021, driven by softer crude oil prices, renewed foreign buying and a global technology sell-off that rotated flows toward emerging markets. “Today’s session is better viewed as healthy digestion rather than a shift in the underlying trend,” said Ponmudi R, CEO, Enrich Money.

Looking at the longer record, the Nifty has closed higher in eight of the last ten Muhurat Trading sessions from 2016 to 2025. The strongest session in that stretch was October 2022, when the index gained 0.88 per cent. Last year’s session delivered the smallest gain of the decade, with the Nifty edging up just 0.10 per cent to 25,868.60.

Samvat 2082, however, proved challenging. The Nifty 50 declined approximately 10.88 per cent during the period, while foreign portfolio investors sold over ₹3 lakh crore of equities. Domestic mutual funds absorbed the pressure, investing ₹5.37 lakh crore. Monthly SIP inflows reached a record ₹32,490 crore in September 2026, even as benchmarks fell. The Nifty’s trailing P/E contracted from 22.72 to 20.65 times.

Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange, addressed the gathering at the Muhurat session, noting that the exchange now serves “27 crore accounts and 13.7 crore unique customers.” He highlighted the launch of Electronic Gold Receipts, with over 1,00,000 units traded on debut, as a step toward dematerialising physical goods. On artificial intelligence, he said: “Whoever makes the AI models, users will be from India. India will make the world use AI,” pointing to India’s approximately 60 lakh IT professionals as a structural advantage. He also cautioned retail investors: “Nobody should invest all their money or borrow to invest.”

Looking ahead, the mood among analysts is cautiously optimistic. “After two years of stagnation, the market has the potential to give investors bumper returns by next Diwali, because of the confluence of low valuation and high earnings growth,” said Raamdeo Agrawal, Chairman and Co-Founder, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, citing potential oil price declines, a stable currency and the moderation of the global AI trade.

Amar K Ambani, Executive Director, Yes Securities, said the correction has improved entry points. “A wide range of stocks are looking extremely oversold, and valuations have become compelling at approximately 17x FY28E earnings,” he said, though he cautioned that the market was likely to deliver single-digit returns over the next twelve months. “The coming year is likely to truly be a stock picker’s market.”

Uday Kotak, Founder and Non-Executive Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank flagged oil and interest rates as the key risks, warning that the AI-driven borrowing boom had created pockets of overvaluation globally, and expected the RBI to raise the repo rate by another 50 to 75 basis points. “Market direction will depend on corporate earnings, domestic growth, foreign fund flows, global developments and crude oil movements,” added Gaurav Garg, Head of Research, Lemonn.

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