Indian stocks set to open muted as Trump's auto tariffs hit markets

As U.S. President Donald Trump's new auto import taxes have negatively impacted market mood in the face of impending reciprocal trade penalties with the United States, Indian equities benchmarks may open Thursday barely altered.

The blue-chip Nifty 50 index is expected to open close to Wednesday's closing of 23,486.85, when the benchmarks ended a seven-session winning streak, according to the GIFT Nifty futures, which were trading at 23,510 as of 7:59 a.m. IST.

Before the March futures contracts for the Nifty 50 expire on Thursday, when investors will either close their holdings or roll them over, analysts anticipate that volatility will continue to be high. The MSCI Asia ex-Japan index fell 0.6%, and other Asian markets experienced losses for the day. Overnight, Wall Street stocks ended the day much down. Trump declared plans to impose 25% tariffs on automobile imports, which would take effect on April 2, after U.S. market hours on Wednesday. [GLOB/MKTS]