MUMBAI — Steel Authority of India has already traded more shares this morning than it does on an ordinary full day. Not more than the first hour of an ordinary day. More than all of it, with better than five hours of the session still to run.
That is the figure worth carrying out of Tuesday’s opening stretch, and what makes it awkward is that nothing has come out of the company to explain it.
SAIL was quoted at ₹183.48 on the National Stock Exchange at 10:28 IST, up ₹3.83 or 2.13 percent on Monday’s close of ₹179.65, and at ₹183.40 on the BSE. It opened at ₹180.70, has ranged between ₹180.30 and ₹185.45, and had turned over 2.94 crore shares. Every figure here is live intraday data from a session that does not settle until 15:30 IST, and none of it is a closing price.
The market around it was going the other way. The Nifty 50 was down 0.40 percent at 24,122.90 and the Sensex 0.22 percent at 77,198.74. So were three of the four large metal producers that rose together on Monday.
Which is the point. The interesting thing about Tuesday morning is not that SAIL is up. It is that the trade which lifted the entire Indian metals complex on Monday has, inside a single session, narrowed to one name.
SAIL Share Price Today: Morning Trade on August 25, 2026
| Measure | NSE · SAIL | BSE · 500113 |
|---|---|---|
| Last traded price | ₹183.48 | ₹183.40 |
| Previous close (August 24) | ₹179.65 | ₹179.35 |
| Change so far | +₹3.83 (+2.13%) | +2.26% |
| Open | ₹180.70 | ₹180.70 |
| Session high so far | ₹185.45 | – |
| Session low so far | ₹180.30 | – |
| Volume so far | 2.94 crore shares | – |
| 52-week high | ₹209.70 (-12.50% from the current price) | |
| 52-week low | ₹118.10 (+55.36% from the current price) | |
| Market capitalisation | ₹73,996 crore, at Monday’s close | |
| Trailing P/E · Price to book | 15.3 · 1.23 | |
| Return on capital employed · Return on equity | 7.79% · 6.43% | |
| Live intraday figures captured at 10:28 IST on August 25, 2026, roughly 73 minutes into a session that runs to 15:30. These are last traded prices, not closing prices, and they will change. Open, high and low for the BSE line were not captured in this run, so those cells are left empty rather than filled from the other exchange. Valuation ratios and market capitalisation are Screener’s, struck at Monday’s close. | ||
At ₹183.48 the stock is 55.4 percent above where it traded twelve months ago and 12.5 percent below its high for the period. It has covered a good deal of that ground in two sessions: from Friday’s close of ₹173.46 it is up 5.78 percent.
Steel Authority of India Stock Code on NSE, BSE and Global Data Feeds
| Exchange or provider | Code | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NSE (National Stock Exchange) | SAIL | Series EQ. Nifty Metal constituent |
| BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) | 500113 | Scrip code. Group A |
| ISIN | INE114A01011 | Depository identifier. Face value ₹10 |
| Google Finance | NSE:SAIL · BOM:500113 | The exchange-prefixed format Google requires |
| Yahoo Finance | SAIL.NS · SAIL.BO | Suffix marks the exchange |
| ISIN, scrip code and face value confirmed against the BSE’s company header feed. SAIL is a Maharatna enterprise under the Ministry of Steel, headquartered in New Delhi, and the ₹10 face value is unusually high for a large Indian listed company, which is worth remembering when comparing its headline price with peers. | ||
The Volume Is the Story, Not the Price
A 2.13 percent gain is unremarkable. The turnover behind it is not.
| Measure | Figure | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Volume traded by 10:28 IST | 2.94 crore shares | NSE, first 73 minutes |
| Average full-day volume, previous 20 sessions | 1.94 crore shares | Calculated by The Eastern Herald |
| Morning volume as a share of an average full day | 151.3% | Calculated by The Eastern Herald |
| Monday’s full-day volume | 4.82 crore shares | About 2.5 times the 20-day average |
| Implied full-day volume at the morning’s pace | About 15 crore shares | Linear extrapolation. See the note below |
| The 20-day average and the ratios are calculated by The Eastern Herald from NSE daily volumes. The last row is the weakest number in this table and is offered only for scale: Indian equity volume is heavily front-loaded into the first hour, so extrapolating a 73-minute figure across a 375-minute session overstates the full-day total, probably by a wide margin. The robust figure is the one above it, which needs no forecast at all. | ||
Strip out the extrapolation and one fact survives without any assumption attached to it. In 73 minutes SAIL traded half again as many shares as it trades in an average complete session. Monday was already an exceptional day at roughly two and a half times normal. Tuesday morning is running well past Monday.
The Metals Trade Narrowed to One Name
Monday’s move was a sector move. Every large Indian metal producer rose, and the explanation was the same for all of them: steel, aluminium, copper and zinc have been climbing on international markets through August, and producers selling at higher realisations keep the difference at the margin line.
Tuesday morning that explanation has stopped working, because the four have come apart.
| Company | Monday, August 24 | Tuesday, 10:28 IST | Turnover pace against its 20-day average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Authority of India | +3.57% | +2.13% | 7.8x |
| Hindustan Zinc | +1.53% | -2.46% | 2.5x |
| Hindalco Industries | +2.37% | -1.29% | 1.3x |
| Tata Steel | +1.80% | -1.13% | 1.0x |
| Monday’s figures are settled closing changes. Tuesday’s are live intraday changes at 10:28 IST and will move. The turnover pace column is calculated by The Eastern Herald as the morning’s volume, scaled to a full session, divided by the stock’s average daily volume over the previous 20 sessions; it carries the same front-loading caveat as the table above and is included to rank the four against each other rather than to predict any of them. | |||
Read the last two columns together. The three producers that have turned lower are also the three trading closest to their ordinary volumes. Tata Steel, at roughly its normal pace, is simply giving back Monday. SAIL is doing something else, at nearly eight times the pace of a normal day, and it is the only one of the four still going up.
That asymmetry is what makes a commodity explanation hard to sustain this morning. A rising zinc price and a rising steel price should not push Hindustan Zinc, which gained 1.53 percent on Monday on record June-quarter results, down 2.46 percent while lifting SAIL. Whatever is moving through SAIL on Tuesday morning is being directed at SAIL.
What SAIL Is, on the Numbers
It is worth being clear about what is being bought at this pace, because the fundamentals are the weakest of the four. SAIL earns a return on equity of 6.43 percent and a return on capital employed of 7.79 percent. Hindalco earns 13.0 percent on equity and Tata Steel 11.7 percent. Hindustan Zinc earns 76.6 percent.
What SAIL offers instead is leverage to the steel price itself. It is a domestic producer with a heavy fixed cost base and thin margins, which means a given move in realisations swings its profit much harder than it swings the profit of a company already earning well. That is the whole case for owning it in a rising market, and the whole case against owning it in a falling one. At 1.23 times book it is the cheapest of the four on assets, and at 15.3 times earnings it is not obviously cheap on profit, because there is not much profit.
SAIL Share Price: The Levels for the Rest of the Session
| Level | Price (₹) | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 52-week high | 209.70 | 12.50% above the current price |
| Session high so far | 185.45 | Set in the first hour |
| Current price | 183.48 | At 10:28 IST |
| Session low so far | 180.30 | Above Monday’s close, so the stock has not been red today |
| Monday’s close | 179.65 | The line that separates a gain from a loss |
| Friday’s close | 173.46 | The base of the two-session move |
| 52-week low | 118.10 | 55.36% below the current price |
| Intraday levels are as at 10:28 IST and the session high and low can both extend. Closing prices for August 21 and August 24 are settled. | ||
What this article cannot tell you is who is buying, or whether any of it lasts to the close. SAIL has made no announcement to the exchanges on Tuesday, and the last material disclosure was the June quarter. The delivery percentage, which would separate genuine investment from intraday churn, is not published until after the market settles, so at 10:28 there is no way to tell whether 2.94 crore shares represents money taking a position or the same shares being turned over repeatedly by traders. The session has more than five hours left, Monday’s pattern was a strong open that held, and nothing here is a forecast.
Elsewhere in the morning, Hindustan Aeronautics was down 1.89 percent at ₹4,813.20, having traded through the ₹4,858 low it set on Monday, and the broader market was soft with the Nifty 50 off 0.40 percent.
SAIL’s valuation ratios are Screener’s consolidated figures at Monday’s close. Prices, volumes and the 52-week range are from the NSE and the BSE’s own quote feed for scrip 500113, captured at 10:28 IST. Monday’s settled figures are as published in The Eastern Herald’s closing report for August 24.
