Mumbai: Investors woke up to a Black Friday as equity indices crashed by nearly 10 percent with coronavirus panic selling globally hitting almost every asset class.
At 10 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was down by 3,091 points or 9.43 percent to 29,688 while the Nifty 50 cracked by 966 points or 10.07 per cent to 8,624.
The trading was halted for the 45 minutes as the Nifty hit a 10 percent lower circuit.
All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were floating in red with Nifty IT down by 13.15 percent, PSU bank by 12.96 percent, metal by 11.83 percent and auto by 11.38 percent.
Among stocks, Kotak Mahindra Bank was the top loser after dropping by over 20 percent at Rs 1,172.05 per share. Bharat Petroleum Corporation slipped by 16.7 percent, GAIL by 15.3 percent and ONGC by 14 percent.
IT majors HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra and Tata Consultancy Services suffered losses of 15.8 percent, 15 percent and 14 percent respectively. The other prominent losers were IndusInd Bank and Adani Ports.
Meanwhile, global stock markets crashed with coronavirus panic selling hitting almost every asset class. Gold and oil fell and once-safe sovereign bonds slumped as investors liquidated everything they could to cover losses.
Japan’s Nikkei dropped as far as 10 percent and headed for its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis.
In South Korea, the Kospi fell by 7.7 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down by 5 percent and China’s Shanghai composite slumped by 3 percent.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2,353 lower at 21,201, the S&P 500 tanked 9.5 percent and the Nasdaq Composite ended 9.4 percent lower at 7,202.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared coronavirus a global pandemic and US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the United States over COVID-19.