Indian shares surge at open, buoyed by US trade deal

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Indian shares surged at the open on Tuesday, with the benchmark Nifty coming within 50 points of record high levels, buoyed by the India-U.S. trade deal which removes a major overhang for the markets.

Both the benchmarks rose about 5% at the open, logging their biggest intra-day jump in five years.

The Nifty 50 was up 2.81% to 25,799.5, while the BSE Sensex added 2.83% to 83,977.92, as of 9:19 a.m. IST.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced a trade deal with India that slashes U.S. tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 50% in exchange of India halting Russian oil purchases and lowering trade barriers.

All 16 major sectors jumped at open, while the broader small-caps and mid-caps gained 3.5% each.

Analysts expect concerns over foreign outflows to ease after the trade deal.

Foreign portfolio investors have offloaded shares worth $23 billion since the start of 2025, triggering a rare underperformance compared with Asian and emerging market peers.

(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran and Vivek Kumar M in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Subhranshu Sahu)