Sensex, Nifty record worst opening since Covid amid tariff meltdown

India’s benchmark indices fell sharply on Monday, with concerns over a global trade war and growing recession fears in the US also sparking a stock market rout on Wall Street and in other Asian markets.

The GIFT Nifty futures were trading at 22,089 as of 7:55 am IST, indicating that the blue-chip Nifty 50 will open about 3.6% lower than Friday’s close of 22,904.45.

Asian shares nosedived on Monday after the meltdown Friday on Wall Street over Donald Trump’s tariff hikes and the backlash from Beijing.

US futures also signaled further weakness. The future for the S&P 500 lost 2.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 2.1%. The future for the Nasdaq lost 3.1%.

Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs came into effect on April 2, with a 10 per cent baseline tax declared on imports from all countries, as well as higher rates for many nations which run trade surpluses with the US.

Among them, there is now charge a 34 per cent tax on imports from China, a 20 per cent tax on imports from the European Union, 25 per cent on South Korea, 24 per cent on Japan and 32 per cent on Taiwan.

These new tariffs come on top of all the previously-imposed levies, which includes the 20 percent tax Trump had announced on all Chinese imports earlier this year.