Sensex slips over 500 points, investors lose ₹3 trillion
24 Feb 2026

The Indian stock market opened on a bearish note today, with the Nifty 50 and Sensex witnessing a major slump.

The fall was mainly due to the poor performance of IT and auto stocks.

The decline has resulted in a loss of ₹2.94 lakh crore in investor wealth, bringing the total BSE market capitalization to around ₹466 lakh crore.

Nifty and Sensex extend losses
Market performance

At 9:15am the Sensex was down by over 500 points at the 83,052 or 0.84%. Meanwhile, the Nifty index opened over 70 points lower at 25,642.

The two indices further extended their losses during the trading session.

The decline in these benchmark indices is a major indicator of today's market downturn.

What's behind market decline?
Reasons

Indian IT giants like TCS, Infosys, and HCL Tech plummeted Tuesday as Anthropic's "Claude Code" threatened their legacy COBOL modernization business.

This AI-driven disruption was compounded by geopolitical fears. Donald Trump's social media warnings of steep tariffs for "playing games" with court rulings sparked a broader selloff.

Additionally, despite upcoming Geneva talks, Trump's hint at potential strikes against Iran if negotiations fail further rattled investor confidence.