Stock Markets LIVE Today Updates: Benchmark indices pare losses; Sensex 96 points down, Nifty above 8,900-level
Stock Markets LIVE Today Updates: Benchmark indices rebounded in the morning trade as Sensex rose 141.53 points or 0.47 percent to 30,521.34 while the Nifty was up 55.85 points or 0.63 percent at 8,981.15 at around 11.30 am.
L&T, ICICI Bank, PowerGrid, Nestle India and IndusInd Bank were the top gainers in the Sensex pack.
Benchmark indices pare losses; Sensex 96 points down, Nifty above 8,900-level
Asian stocks look set to tumble on Thursday, as fears that the world is in its worst recession since the 1930s were heightened by data showing US retailers suffered a record sales collapse in March due to the coronavirus
outbreak.
E-Mini future for the S&P 500 ESc1 fell 0.76 percent while Nikkei futures NKc1 pointed to a loss of 70 points, mirroring a 2.2 percent decline in the S&P 500 overnight.
The flight from risk helped the dollar rebound against major currencies and nudged gold off a 7-1/2-year high, while expectations that a recession will depress demand for oil pushed crude prices to 18-year lows overnight.
“The US (and global) economy is in a deep recession,” Kim Mundy, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note, adding that a downturn will support the dollar.
“The unemployment rate in the United States will almost certainly lift above 10 percent shortly.”
Data showed on Wednesday that US retail sales had plunged 8.7 percent in March, the biggest drop since the government started tracking the series in 1992. Output at factories was also shown to have declined by the most since 1946.

Representational image. Reuters.
The United States is set to release its weekly jobless claims data on Thursday and the market expects a further 5.105 million claims, according to a Reuters poll.
The grim outlook was echoed by lenders with major US banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc warning of future loan losses as they posted drops in profits.
The coronavirus
, which triggers a respiratory illness, has caused two million infections worldwide and over 131,000 deaths, wreaking havoc on the global economy as governments shut schools and businesses and order people to stay home to slow its spread.
Though countries including Spain, Italy and Germany are re-opening some businesses, analysts say it is unclear when the global economy will recover to its pre-pandemic days. In the United States, President Donald Trump said he will announce “guidelines” for re-starting the economy on Thursday.
Evidence that the global downturn has slashed the demand for oil again drubbed U.S. crude prices. The United States had reported overnight its biggest weekly inventory build on record, following a warning from the International Energy Agency that oil demand will dive 29 million barrels a day in April to levels unseen in a quarter of a century.
US crude CLc1 was last up 1.7 percent at $20.23, recovering from an earlier low of $19.51, while Brent crude LCOc1 was down 5.4 percent at $28.
Bracing for tough times ahead, investors piled into bonds. The yield on US 30-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) hit a record low of -0.183 percent, while that of US. 10-year TIPs fell to a seven-year trough of -0.553 percent.
US two-year yields were at 0.201 percent after dropping below 0.2 percent for the first time in three years, and 10-year yields US10YT=RR were at a one-week low at 0.635 percent, more than 100 basis points off their January levels.
The demand for safety helped the dollar index rise 0.7 percent to 99.564. It was steady against the Japanese yen after gaining as much as 0.25 percent overnight, while the euro recovered to $1.0909, from a low of $1.0859. The Australian dollar, which is leveraged to global growth, was down 0.1 percent at $0.631.
A stronger dollar pulled gold prices back from a 7-1/2-year high struck this week, helped by recessionary fears and a tide of cheap money from central banks. It was last at $1,714 an ounce.
The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that the world economy is set to shrink by 3% this year in the steepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.