Markets slump in early trade on global trade war fears

Mumbai: Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty slumped in initial trade on Friday due to heavy selling in metal, oil & gas shares as President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff salvo reignited the fears of global trade war.

Besides, foreign fund outflows have also dented the investor sentiment.

The 30-share BSE Sensex slumped 591.05 points or 0.77 per cent to 75,704.31 in the morning trade. The broader NSE Nifty declined 202.55 points or 0.87 per cent to 23,047.55.

From the Sensex pack, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki India, IndusInd Bank, Infosys, HCL Technologies, NTPC, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, and Adani Ports were among the laggards.

In contrast, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Mahindra & Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Nestle India and Hindustan Unilever were the gainers.

"Markets are going through heightened uncertainty, which is likely to last some time. A trade war has been triggered by Trump and retaliatory tariffs from China, EU and others are on the cards.

"This will only extend the period of uncertainty and confusion in the market," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.

Vijayakumar further, said "It appears that contraction in global trade and decline in global growth are inevitable in the present context. Decline in global growth will impact India’s growth, too, even though we might do better than other large economies".

Investors can wait for the dust to settle down. For the short-term, it would be better to focus on domestic consumption-driven themes and pharma in the externally-linked segments, he added.

Trump on Wednesday announced a 27 per cent "discounted reciprocal tariff" on India, half of the 52 per cent levies imposed by India on American goods, as he described India as "very, very tough".

On India, the chart showed that the country charged 52 per cent tariffs to the US "including currency manipulation and trade barriers,” and America will now charge India “discounted reciprocal tariffs” of 27 per cent.

In Asian markets, Tokyo's Nikkei was trading more than 3 per cent lower, and Seoul's KOSPI went down by nearly 2 per cent. Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets remained closed on the occasion of Qingming festival.

US markets ended lower in overnight deals on Thursday and experienced their biggest drop since 2020.

According to HDFC Securities' Head of Prime Research Devarsh Vakil, Wall Street benchmarks slumped on Thursday, ending with the largest one-day percentage losses in years, as US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs ignited fears of an all-out trade war and a global economic recession.

The bruising sell-off across markets came after President Trump on Wednesday announced Washington's steepest trade barriers in more than 100 years, sending investors scrambling for safety assets, Vakil said.

Investors will be awaiting US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech on Friday regarding his latest assessment of the US economy and any clues on the policy outlook following Trump's fresh tariff salvo, he added.

Global oil benchmark Brent Crude slipped 0.70 per cent to USD 69.65 a barrel.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 2,806 crore on Thursday, while Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) purchased shares worth Rs 221.47 crore on a net basis.

On Thursday, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined by 322.08 points to close at 76,295.36, and the broader NSE Nifty fell 82.25 points to settle at 23,250.10.