Indian benchmark indices opened in red on Tuesday morning ahead of NIFTY50’s monthly expiry. The domestic markets shrugged off the positive cues from the US markets overnight gains and early morning gains in the Asian markets. NIFTY50 opened 47 points lower, while SENSEX fell below the 73,500 level on Tuesday. This decline marked a reversal from the previous day's gains in the market.

The pullback was largely driven by index heavyweight stocks such as HDFC Bank, which fell 0.45%, Sriram Finance down 0.6%, HCL Technologies sliding 0.8%, and Infosys dropping 2.4%. The index breadth for NIFTY50 tilted towards losers, with 34 stocks opening in red, 11 in green, and 5 unchanged. This pattern reflected a cautious stance among large‑cap investors amid market volatility in the session.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries shares fell 0.4% ahead of the Jio Platforms IPO listing. The overall IPO was subscribed 21.3x, garnering bids worth ₹4.72 lakh crore against ₹30,213 crore offered. The high subscription multiple underscored strong investor demand, while the substantial bid book reflected confidence in the company’s valuation and growth prospects for the.

The broader markets showed relative outperformance on Tuesday morning, opening in the green across the board. The Smallcap 100 surged the most, up 1.6% on Tuesday morning, extending the pullback from Monday. The index surged 245 points or 1.3% on Monday. Similarly, the NIFTY Midcap 100 also extended its recovery from the previous day, surging 0.45% or 250 points on Tuesday morning, alleviating some anxiety of the broader market selloff that occurred last week.

Defence stocks were among the major winners at the thematic level in Tuesday’s opening session. The NIFTY India Defence index surged 2.78% after the DAC cleared proposals worth ₹2.1 lakh crore for a wide range of military platforms and weapon systems on Monday. At the stock level, Apollo Micro Systems rose 8.4%, Paras Defence 5.9%, Data Patterns 5.8%, and Astra Microwave 5.4%. Paytm’s One97 Communications posted a net profit of ₹225 crore for the quarter ended September 2026, while Tata Consumer rose 6% after Q2FY27 net profit jumped 16% to ₹469 crore.