A day after ending with decent gains of about half a per cent, Indian stock market benchmarks resumed their downward march on Friday, January 23, on profit booking amid persisting geopolitical uncertainties, caution ahead of the Union Budget 2026, and mixed Q3 earnings. The Sensex crashed nearly 800 points, or about 1%, to an intraday low of 81,510, while the Nifty 50, too, plunged 1% to touch 25,043 on the downside. The sell-off was broad-based and even more intense in the mid and small-cap segments, as the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices dropped by up to 2%.
