India’s equity markets bore the brunt of a global selloff on Monday morning, as fears of a widening trade war triggered by steep US tariffs rattled investor sentiment and led to one of the sharpest single-day value erosions since the pandemic.
The benchmark BSE Sensex plunged 3,939.68 points, or 5.22 per cent, to 71,425.01 during early trade, while the broader market capitalisation of companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange plummeted by ₹20.16 lakh crore to ₹3,83,18,592.93 crore (approximately USD 4.5 trillion).
All 30 Sensex constituents were trading in the red, with Tata Steel and Tata Motors leading the losses, each dropping over 10 per cent. Other major laggards included Larsen & Toubro, HCL Technologies, Adani Ports, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, TCS, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra & Mahindra.
The crash in Indian markets mirrored a bloodbath across Asia, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng nosediving over 11 per cent. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 7 per cent, while Shanghai’s SSE Composite and South Korea’s Kospi both sank nearly 7 per cent and over 5 per cent respectively.
On Wall Street, the week ended on a similar note of despair. The S&P 500 had tanked 5.97 per cent, the Nasdaq Composite slumped 5.82 per cent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 5.50 per cent on Friday, as nervous investors reacted to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on global trade partners.
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"Globally markets are going through heightened volatility caused by extreme uncertainty. No one has a clue about how this turbulence caused by Trump's tariffs will evolve. Wait and watch would be the best strategy in this turbulent phase of the market," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
All sectoral indices on the BSE were deep in negative territory. The Metal index collapsed nearly 8 per cent, followed by Industrials (6.39 per cent), Commodities (6.14 per cent), IT (5.71 per cent), BSE Focused IT (5.57 per cent), Consumer Discretionary (5.42 per cent), and Teck (4.84 per cent). The Smallcap index cracked 6.62 per cent and the Midcap gauge dropped 5.01 per cent.
The global rout also sent Brent crude tumbling by 2.76 per cent, with the benchmark oil price slipping to USD 63.77 a barrel, its lowest in over a year.
With global markets steeped in uncertainty and no signs of an immediate reversal in sentiment, investors are expected to remain cautious in the days ahead.
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