Bloodbath on D-Street: Sensex loses nearly 4,000 points, Nifty 50 tanks 5% amid global stock market rout

Benchmark Indian indices rushed headfirst into the global stock market bloodbath on Monday (April 7), following key developments around tariffs hikes imposed by the US government on all major trading partners.

The 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 71,449.94, sinking a staggering 5.19 per cent or 3914.75 points since last week’s closing levels.

The broader Nifty 50 index also fell 5 per cent or 1146.05 points since the previous session to open at 21,758.40.

Shares of Tata Group companies took massive hits— at 9:30 am, Tata Motors was down over 11 per cent while Tata Steel had tanked over 8 per cent.

IT sector stocks also took a heavy beating, with HCL Tech, Infosys, and Tech Mahindra all falling around 6 per cent each.

Behind the beatdown: Trump tariffs

By far, the biggest reason for the markets getting bulldozed was the Trump tariffs hike. After Trump announced “reciprocal tariffs” on almost all of the United States’ trading partners, China hit back with 34 per cent tariffs on all goods imported from US. Those levies are set to come into effect from April 10.

During early trade, Asian markets , tracking Wall Street losses seen on Friday and on exponentially raised fears of a painful trade war, took a steep fall.

Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Nikkei index, which had opened in the red by 625.61 points at 33,154.97, further sank to hit a 52-week low of 30,792.74 during early trade— down 8.84 per cent from the previous session’s closing level of 33,780.58.

Taiwan Stock Exchange weighted index, the Taiex, plunged 9.8 per cent at the open.

Both Japanese and Taiwanese markets hit circuit breakers today.

Markets in Hong Kong and China reacted not only to Donald Trump’s tariffs, but also Beijing’s retaliation to these duties.

The Hang Seng Index dropped 9.28 per cent, or 2,119.76 points, to 20,730.05, although the Shanghai Composite Index shed only 4.21 per cent. South Korea’s Kospi was off 4.8 per cent in early trade.

With inputs from agencies