Asian markets sank again today as the White House imposed reciprocal US tariffs, including a massive 104 per cent levy on Chinese imports.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell nearly 4 per cent in morning trade, while markets in South Korea, New Zealand and Australia also declined, according to the Associated Press.
China’s blue chips slipped 1.2 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 3.1 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.7 per cent.
The US markets aren’t any better off. The S&P 500 was swept up in one of the biggest reversals in at least the last 50 years, with the benchmark index losing 4.2 percentage points. The index has lost 5.8 trillion dollars in stock market value, the deepest four-day loss since it was created in the 1950s.
The Benchmark domestic equity indices, Sensex and Nifty, were trading over 0.4 per cent down in forenoon trade today, tracking weakness in global markets amid rising trade tension. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India cut its policy repo rate by 25 basis points to six per cent in the first meeting of the financial year and changed the monetary policy stance from neutral to accommodative- signalling further reductions in the repo rate. The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 317 points to 73,91,0, and the NSE Nifty50 dropped 107 points to 22,428 when reports last came in.