Sensex opens over 500 points down amidst negative global cues

With Nasdaq, Nikkei and other global indices suffering heavy losses, BSE started 500 points down on Friday Morning.

At opening trade, Sensex opened 526 points down and Nifty started 177.50 points in the red. At 9.50 AM, Sensex has recovered partially, still down by 458 points (-1.32%). Nikkei is currently down 629 points. Similarly Hang Seng has seen heavy selling with index tumbling 3%, over 1000 points.

Wall Street tumbled back into sell-off mode, with the Dow plunging more than 1,000 points as worries over interest rate hikes continued to drag the market down.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 4.2 per cent to 23,860.46 yesterday. The broad-based S&P 500 sank 3.8 per cent to 2,581.00, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 3.9 per cent to 6,777.16.

With yesterday's losses, the Dow and S&P 500 have now fallen more than 10 per cent from their peaks, meeting the official definition of a "correction" in financial parlanceand marking an about-face from the bullishness of early 2018. "The sellers remain in clear control right now as a lot of the excess froth we saw in January, has now been unwound or erased," said Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments. White House spokesman Raj Shah expressed concern about the drop in stocks, but continued to point to robust employment data and corporate earnings as signs that "long term fundamentals demonstrate a healthy economy."

After a muted open, major indices were in the red most of the day, suffering a major bout of weakness in late morning and another round of selling late in the afternoon.

Bombay Stock Exchange - BSE

National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE)