Benchmark stock market indices opened marginally higher on Monday, due to the absence of any fresh trigger as markets enter the last few days of trading in 2025.

The S&P BSE Sensex was up 18.79 points to 85,060.24, while the NSE Nifty50 added 11.90 points to 26,054.20 as of 9:23 am.

Dr. VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited, said that the standout feature of 2025 has been India’s stark underperformance compared to most developed and emerging markets.

"This underperformance is set to change in 2026 supported by solid fundamentals: India’s macros are in Goldilocks setting with robust economic growth and stable financial construt. The more important factor from the market perspective-earnings growth- is set to recover from Q3 FY26 onwards," he added.

Tata Steel led the gainers, rising 1.89%, followed by Eternal, which was up 1.33%. Bharat Electronics gained 1.09%, Kotak Mahindra Bank added 0.63%, and Tata Motors DVR moved up 0.54%, giving some early support to the index.

Adani Ports was the biggest laggard, falling 1.02%. Bajaj Finserv declined 0.75%, Power Grid Corporation slipped 0.68%, Axis Bank was down 0.54%, and Bharti Airtel fell 0.33%.

"Even though these are favourable factors, these are not sufficient to trigger a rally soon. A strong rebound in the market needs a trigger like a US- India trade deal with favourable thrills for India," said Vijaykumar.

"There is no clarity yet on when this will happen. Therefore, a consolidation phase is likely in the near-term, and investors can utilise this consolidation phase to slowly accumulate high quality stocks giving priority to largecaps," he added.