Sensex falls over 400 points, Nifty slips below 10,000

New Delhi: Stock market on Friday opened in the red with the BSE Sensex falling over 400 points and the NSE Nifty cracking the 10,000-mark on growing fears of a global trade war after Donald Trump imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on Chinese imports and Beijing drew up a list of retaliatory measures.

At 9.33 am the BSE Sensex was trading 438.30 points or 1.33 percent down at 32,567.97 while the Nifty plunged 142.10 points or 1.40 percent at 9,972.65.

All the sectoral indices, led by metal, realty, banking and capital goods stocks, were trading in the red, falling up to 2.77 percent.

Top laggards were Yes Bank, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, SBI, Bajaj Auto, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp and L&T, falling by up to 3.08 percent.

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese stocks plunged at open Friday. The Hang Seng Index plunged 3.67 percent, or 1,140.82 points, to 29,930.23, while the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.78 percent, or 90.71 points, to 3,172.77 and the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China`s second exchange, dropped 3.09 percent, or 57.22 points, to 1,792.38.

China has announced a list of US goods including pork and aluminium pipe it says may be hit by higher tariffs in response to President Donald Trump's higher import duties on steel and aluminium.

Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday that could impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of imports from China, although the measures have a 30-day consultation period.

Investors fear that the U.S. measures could escalate into a trade war, with potentially dire consequences for the global economy.

Tokyo stocks too opened sharply down Friday, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index falling three percent on revived trade war fears.

With Agency Inputs