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Last week, India and the US reached an interim trade agreement under which the US will reduce tariffs on select Indian goods to 18% from 50%, according to a joint statement issued by the White House.

BENGALURU: India’s equity benchmarks ended marginally higher on Wednesday, as losses in local IT stocks following a global selloff of software companies over artificial intelligence-fuelled disruption fears dampened optimism over the U.S. trade deal. The Nifty 50 rose 0.19% to 25,776, while the BSE Sensex added 0.09% to 83,817.69. They fell as much as 0.7% in early trade on pressure from IT stocks. Thirteen of the 16 major sectors ended higher. IT sector, which has the second-heaviest weightage on benchmarks, plunged 5.9% in its biggest daily drop in nearly six years. The broader small-caps and mid-caps rose 1.3% and 0.6%, respectively. U.S. AI developer Anthropic on Friday launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent that would automate tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis. It sparked worries of a disruption in traditional software businesses. Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research at SBICAPS Securities, called the drop in domestic IT stocks a knee-jerk reaction. “It is not clear how much impact this will have on software companies, but the market is pre-empting the concerns that a new AI tool could reduce billable hours and cost arbitrage for them,” he said.

India’s equity benchmarks are set to open sharply higher near record highs on Tuesday, as the India–U.S. trade deal removes a major overhang for markets that have underperformed Asian and emerging market peers over the past year. Gift Nifty futures were trading at 26,190 points, as of 8:26 a.m. IST, indicating the benchmark Nifty 50 index will open about 4.5% above Monday’s close of 25,088.4. The Gift Nifty levels also indicate the Nifty ascending towards the record high of 26,373.20 hit in January. US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a trade deal with India that slashes U.S. tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 50% in exchange of India halting Russian oil purchases and lowering trade barriers. The key tail risk of India’s geopolitical isolation about which investors were concerned has now been adequately addressed by the back-to-back deals with EU and U.S., Citi Research said in a note. Analysts expect the overhang on Indian markets in terms of foreign outflows will be removed after the trade deal with the US.

Indian shrimp companies are set for strong buying after a trade deal with the US. Tariffs on Indian exports to the US have been cut to 18% from 50%. This move removes a major concern for foreign investors. The agreement is expected to boost Indian markets and unlock opportunities for cooperation between the two nations.