Finance
Stock Market Highlights today, Monday, August 18, 2025: Equity benchmark indices ended with solid gains on Monday led by auto, realty and consumer durables shares as investors cheered plans of GST reforms.
In his August 15 Independence Day speech, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that the government would implement next-generation GST reforms in order to significantly rationalize rates by Diwali 2025.
The BSE Sensex closed at 81,274, up 676 points, or 0.8%. At 24,877, the NSE Nifty 50 index increased 246 points, or 1%.
A robust surge in auto and certain financial equities earlier in the day propelled the Sensex to an intra-day high of 81,766. The NSE Nifty 50 index reached a high of 25,022 after momentarily surpassing the 25,000 threshold.
Out of the Sensex 30 shares, Maruti was the biggest gainer. The stock shot up more than 9% to ₹14,100. The other top performers, which increased by 3 to 5 percent each, were Bajaj Finance, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finserv, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindustan Unilever, and Trent.
Conversely, Eternal, ITC, Tech Mahindra, and Larsen & Toubro saw declines of more than 1%.
The Nifty MidCap and SmallCap indices both saw increases of up to 1.5% in the overall market. Among the notable winners were Ashok Leyland, Blue Star, Godrej Industries, Escorts, PG Electroplast, KEC International, Amber Enterprises, Pfizer, and Bata India.
The Nifty Auto index performed better sectorally, gaining more than 4%. On Monday, the Realty rose 2% while the Nifty Consumer Durables index gained 3.5%. However, the IT index fell more than 0.5%.
Source: BS
