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Samir Arora of Helios warned that the market will fall much more after a knee-jerk reaction took the Nifty lower by as much as 700 points on Sunday, February 1.
The markets took a sharp nosedive after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a hike in the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) in the Futures and Options segment by up to 150%. The Nifty 50 made an intraday low of 24,572, before recovering.
"First reaction is that the market will fall much more. We have to realise what the issue was – the issue is we are underperforming like crazy in the world and the world is not interested and the FIIs are not interested," Arora said.
Indian equities underperformed their global peers in 2025 with the Nifty 50 index gaining only 10% for the year, in comparison to the global markets, which gained between 20% to even as high as 65% for South Korea's KOSPI.
He also went on to add that the currency would fall by another 1%. Currency markets, unlike equities, are shut for today's trading session.
"The first thing is that you cannot just do STT increase - maybe options is bad, futures is bad but you cannot go out and off line with what the reality is today that India is getting highlighted as a poor stock market not so much the real economy and in that sense other things matter after two-four weeks but it is not easy to get back investors," he added.
The Nifty 50 index has recovered over 500 points from the lows of the day, still trading with losses of over 200 points after the Budget announcement.
The markets took a sharp nosedive after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a hike in the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) in the Futures and Options segment by up to 150%. The Nifty 50 made an intraday low of 24,572, before recovering.
"First reaction is that the market will fall much more. We have to realise what the issue was – the issue is we are underperforming like crazy in the world and the world is not interested and the FIIs are not interested," Arora said.
Indian equities underperformed their global peers in 2025 with the Nifty 50 index gaining only 10% for the year, in comparison to the global markets, which gained between 20% to even as high as 65% for South Korea's KOSPI.
He also went on to add that the currency would fall by another 1%. Currency markets, unlike equities, are shut for today's trading session.
"The first thing is that you cannot just do STT increase - maybe options is bad, futures is bad but you cannot go out and off line with what the reality is today that India is getting highlighted as a poor stock market not so much the real economy and in that sense other things matter after two-four weeks but it is not easy to get back investors," he added.
The Nifty 50 index has recovered over 500 points from the lows of the day, still trading with losses of over 200 points after the Budget announcement.
