Market Opening Bell: Indices crash on trade war; NIFTY50 plunges 1,146 points, SENSEX declines 5%, Tata Steel top loser

The Indian stock market crashed over 5% during the opening session on Monday, April 7, as investors remained worried following trade war and fresh tariffs.

At 9:17 AM, the S&P BSE SENSEX was plunged 3,068.18 points, or 4.07%, at the 72,296.51 level, while NSE’s NIFTY50 was at the 21,758.40 level, crashing 1,146.05 points, or 5%.

These were the levels last seen in June 2024.

The broader market also saw steep decline as midcap stocks were down over 4% and smallcap index also fell 5.6%.

All the indices were trading negative with IT, metal, auto and oil and gas being the biggest losers.

Tata Steel, Trent, Tata Motors, Hindalco and Infosys were the biggest laggards, slipping as much as 10%.

The BSE Sensex lost 2,050.23 points, or 2.64%, previous week while the NSE Nifty declined 614.8 points, or 2.61%.

Last week, the foreign investors withdrew ₹10,355 crore from the country's equity markets. According to the data, FPIs have pulled out ₹10,355 crore from Indian equities in the last four trading sessions (from April 1 to April 4).

Globally, Asian stocks plunged on Monday following US President Donald Trump's tariff and retaliation by China. Japan's Nikkei 225 index lost as much as 8.84%. Earlier in the trading, trading was suspended in Japanese stock futures due to the market hitting circuit breakers.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 10.14%. Similarly, Taiwan's TAIEX plunged 9.79%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped up to 6.5%, while South Korea's Kospi tumbled 5.58%.

The US markets on Friday faced another bad day as major indices settled around 6% lower. The broad-based S&P 500 closed down 6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,200 points, or about 5.5%.

As many as 2,548 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which only 22,436 stocks were trading in the negative, only 72 in the green and 40 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of negative.

As many as 586 stocks hit their one-year low in the early trade, while only 10 stocks touched their 52-week high.

Further, 284 stocks hit their lower circuits, while 16 hit their upper circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 51.76% higher at 20.88 levels.

The broader market also witnessed a heavy sell-off during the early trades, with the Nifty Smallcap 100 trading 4.66% lower at 14,945.85 levels and the Nifty Midcap 100 at 48,878 levels, declining 4.66%.