LIVE Brexit shock: Markets pare early losses; Sensex still down over 700 points

Indian markets dropped sharply on Friday with early referendum results indicating Britain would leave the European Union.

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Market benchmark Sensex recovered 400 points after it took a big 1,058-point plunge as UK's vote to exit European Union sent financial markets into a tailspin, eroding nearly Rs 4 lakh crore from the investors' wealth held in stocks.

Here are the live updates:

- Nifty trading at 8,064

- Nifty back at 8,000 level

- Sensex Trading at 26,335

- Sensex recovers 400 points

-European Stocks fall up to 10 percent at opening trade

-Gold futures tops Rs 30,000-mark by zooming over Rs 2,000 per 10 grams

- 99 out of 100 Midcap Index stocks are in red.

- Major losers were Tata Motors that dipped by 11.40 percent, Tata Steel by about 9 percent.

- ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, Adani Ports, Larsen, ONGC and Reliance Industries were also down significantly.

-An hour into trading trading, Sensex has drifted sharply and is ruling at 226,073.55 points, down 928 points, or 3.44 percent.

-Nifty is ruling below the 8,000-points mark at 7,972.35 points, down 298.26 points, or 3.61 percent.

- The BSE Sensex plunged over 800 points in opening trade while the NSE Nifty too fell by over 250 points.

-Some 15 minutes into trading, it was ruling at 26,268.85 points, down 733.37 points, or 2.72 percent.

- In the pre-open trades, the 30-scrip index was down as much as 634.74-points or 2.35 percent. An indication came from the SGX Nifty, which trades on the Singapore exchange and ahead of the opening bell in India, was down over 2.75 percent.

- At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), where the 51-scrip Nifty had closed at 8,270.45 points, the opening bell was at 8,029.10 points.

- Thereafter, the index was ruling at 8,032.65 points, down 237.80 points, or 2.88 percent

- Meanwhile Rupee fell past 68 against the US dollar. The Indian rupee was trading at 68.1225/68.1300 to the dollar after tumbling to as low as 68.22 to the dollar, its weakest since March 1. The currency had closed at 67.25/67.26 per dollar on Thursday.

The pound nosedived to the $1.33 level Friday as the unit took a beating, in what critics warned would be a hammer blow to financial markets.

In the US, all three major indices saw some impressive rallies. The S&P 500 index gained and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained around 1.3 percent each and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.6 percent.