Indian stock markets perform better than Asian peers, but struggle to recover as Sensex, Nifty still down over 4%

Indian stock markets struggled to reclaim massive losses racked up early during the trading session on Monday (April 7), even as the benchmark indices performed better than most Asian peers.

At 12:40 pm, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 4.3 per cent or 3230.13 points at 72,134.56, only marginally better than the opening level of 71,449.94.

Around half past noon, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Larsen and Toubro, HCLTech, and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the top laggards in the Sensex pack.

Around the same time, the broader Nifty 50 index was down 4.52 per cent, or 1,034.35 points, at 21,870.10. The index had opened at 21,758.40.

In the Nifty 50 grouping, the top 5 losers in order were Trent, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Shriram Finance, and Tata Motors.

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Despite the rout in the share market due to US imposing hefty tariffs on multiple nations, Indian markets have not been as adversely impacted as others around the world.

“Prima facie, the impact [of tariffs] on India’s exports is expected to be lesser, given the country’s diversified trade strategy, and the fact that the tariffs on it are relatively lower v/s Asian peers,” JM Financial’s Venkatesh Balasubramaniam said in a recent report.

However, the expert warned that there is still a lot of uncertainty over “who bears the brunt of the tariffs, the status of goods in transit, global commodity prices, retaliatory measures, US inflation, the rate cut trajectory going forward, and potentially a global slowdown.”

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How did Asian markets perform?

Other Asian benchmark indices performed significantly worse than their Indian peers.

A little over half an hour before market closing (local time), Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was at 19,888.98, down 12.96 per cent from the previous closing.

Taiwan’s Taiex traded flat throughout the session after sinking 9.8 per cent at opening. Around 2:30 pm, the index stood at 19,232.35, having bled 2,065.87 points or 9.70 per cent.

The Shanghai Composite Index was down by 7.34 per cent to 3,096.58 points.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed at 31,136.58, down 7.83 per cent or 2,644 points.

Fears of a painful China-US trade war, ignited by China’s imposition of 34 per cent tariffs on all US imports (which was in turn spurred off by US President Donald Trump’s imposition of high reciprocal tariffs on China), adversely affected market sentiment.

Broader global markets

Here’s how broader global markets performed on Monday at 1 pm IST [7:30 am GMT]:

• Italy: -8.4 per cent

• Singapore: -8 per cent

• Sweden: -7 per cent

• China: -7 per cent

• Switzerland: -7 per cent

• Frankfurt: -7 per cent

• Spain: -6.4 per cent

• Netherlands: -6.2 per cent

• Australia: -6.2 per cent

• France: -6.1 per cent

• UK: -5.2 per cent

• Malaysia: -4.5 per cent

• Philippines: -4.3 per cent

• Russia: -3.8 per cent

• Saudi: -3.3 per cent

• Turkey: -2.8 per cent

With inputs from agencies