Indian equities ahead of the weekly expiry opened in Thursday's session (February 20) after Fed meeting minutes point at a cautious stance of the US Federal Reserve. At the start, the NSE's Nifty50 index declined 0.36 per cent or 83.45 points to 22,849.45, while the BSE 30-share Sensex fell 0.41 per cent or 311.67 points to 75,627.5.

Meanwhile, the broader markets also traded lower with midcap gauge declining more in comparison the smallcap index.

Sectorally, barring the metal gauge, it was a sea of red, with all the indices facing selling pressure, led by auto, FMCG, realty and consumer durable stocks.

In early trade, from the Nifty50 basket, top gainers included stocks like Shriram Finance, Cipla, Hindalco, Infosys and SBI Life Insurance, while top laggards were M&M, ITC, Maruti Suzuki, Britannia and Bharat Electronics.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, "Trump’s tariff talks continue to impact markets. Trump’s declaration yesterday that the US will impose 25 per cent tariffs on automobiles, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals impacted India’s pharma stocks since India’s leading pharma companies are major exporters to the US. If this is implemented in early April as Trump declared, it will impact the US, too, through shortages and higher prices."

It appears that Trump’s intention is to negotiate and extract concessions before tariffs are imposed. It remains to be seen how this will pan out, he added.

Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Financial Services on the Nifty outlook said,  "As feared, the upswings turned lower from the 23060 vicinity, the level assumed to provide the first line of resistance yesterday. This renders the 22800 region ever more vulnerable, but yesterday's close does not leave us with signs of an outright collapse."

We favour an ascent before such downside break unfolds, for the sake of momentum. While this prompts us to retain 23150 as the upside objective, we have no intention of taking our eyes off the prospects of an imminent drop aiming at 21800-21300, unless 23300 is conquered, he added.

Amid continuing concerns over higher-for-longer interest rates as well as increased trade tariffs under Donald Trump's administration, most Asian stocks fell. The key MSCI Asia ex Japan index was down 0.7 per cent at the last count.

Both the Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng indices were down sharply, losing nearly 1.7 per cent. Hong Kong stocks saw steep losses as a rally powered by AI lost momentum.