Stock market crash makes investors poorer by ₹20.16 lakh crore in morning trade

Investors' wealth eroded sharply by ₹20.16 lakh crore on Monday morning as the benchmark indices faced heavy drubbing, with the Sensex dropping over 5%, amid a global market meltdown due to growing trade war concerns.

The 30-share BSE benchmark tumbled 3,939.68 points or 5.22% to 71,425.01 in early trade.

Mirroring the bearish trend in equities, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms declined sharply by ₹20,16,293.53 crore to ₹3,83,18,592.93 crore ($4.50 trillion) during the morning trade.

All the Sensex firms were trading lower. Tata Steel and Tata Motors dropped over 10% each. Larsen & Toubro, HCL Technologies, Adani Ports, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries and Mahindra & Mahindra were the other big laggards.

In Asian markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tanked more than 11%, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 plunged 7%, the Shanghai SSE Composite index dropped nearly 7% and South Korea's Kospi sank over 5%.

US markets ended significantly lower on Friday. The S&P 500 tanked 5.97%, Nasdaq composite slumped 5.82%, and the Dow tumbled 5.50% on Friday.

"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," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dropped 2.76% to $63.77 a barrel.

The BSE smallcap gauge cracked 6.62%, and the midcap index tanked 5.01%.

All the BSE sectoral indices were trading in negative territory. Metal tumbled nearly 8%, industrials dropped 6.39%, commodities (6.14%), IT (5.71%), BSE-Focused IT (5.57%), consumer discretionary (5.42%) and teck (4.84%).