India's equity benchmarks, the Sensex and Nifty, tumbled on Monday morning amid fears of rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID hitting the global economic recovery.
By mid-day, the Sensex had dropped 1,434.03 points to hit 55,577.71 and the Nifty fell over 2 per cent to the 16,600 mark. News 18 reported investors lost Rs 11 lakh crore as the markets slumped amid the global sell-off.
ANI reported, “Half of the Sensex scrips slumped more than 3 per cent. Bajaj Finance slumped 5.04 per cent to Rs.6,554. IndusInd Bank slumped 4.53 per cent to Rs.843.80. Tata Steel 4.10 per cent down at Rs.1,085.40; State Bank of India 4 per cent down at Rs.449.05; NTPC 4.06 per cent down at Rs.120.40, Bajaj Finserv 3.79 per cent down at Rs.15,589.90 and HDFC 3.74 per cent down at Rs.2,519.35 were among the major Sensex losers.”
The slump in Indian markets reflected the broader global worry about the impact of Omicron. “Chinese blue chips still dipped 0.4 per cent, while MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.8 per cent. Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.7 per cent and South Korean stocks 1.2 per cent. S&P 500 futures shed 0.8 per cent and Nasdaq futures almost 1 per cent. EUROSTOXX 50 futures lost 1.1 per cent and FTSE futures 1.0 per cent,” NDTV reported.
