Nifty 50, Sensex and Bank Nifty: what is the difference?
Updated 2026-10-24 · 5 min read
Nifty 50, Sensex and Bank Nifty are the three Indian indices you hear about most. They overlap, but each answers a slightly different question about the market.
Nifty 50
The Nifty 50 is the benchmark index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). It tracks 50 large, actively traded companies across sectors, and its base value was set at 1,000 on 3 November 1995. When people say "the market was up today", they usually mean the Nifty 50.
Sensex
The Sensex is the benchmark index of BSE, India's oldest stock exchange. It tracks 30 large companies and is the older of the two indices, with a base value of 100 for the year 1978-79. Because its 30 companies largely overlap with the Nifty 50, the two usually move in the same direction.
Bank Nifty
Bank Nifty, officially the Nifty Bank index, tracks the largest and most liquid banking stocks listed on NSE. Banking is a big part of the Indian market, and Bank Nifty is usually more volatile than the Nifty 50. It is also one of the most heavily traded indices in Indian futures and options.
How they are calculated
All three use free-float market capitalisation: each company is weighted by the value of shares that are actually available to trade, leaving out those held by promoters and governments. This means a handful of the biggest companies have a large influence on each index.
Why they sometimes move differently
- Bank Nifty reacts strongly to interest-rate news, RBI policy and bank results.
- Sensex and Nifty 50 contain different numbers of stocks, so a big move in one heavyweight can affect them slightly differently.
- Sector rotation, such as money moving from IT to banks, shows up in Bank Nifty before it shows up in the broad indices.
Following them on TradeIntel AI
TradeIntel AI's daily brief covers Nifty and Bank Nifty in plain language, and the live market dashboard and indices and movers pages show how the major indices are moving through the day.