The benchmark equity indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) opened at their lowest levels since September 2019 on Friday tracking a sell-off in the global markets as fresh fear about the spread of the Coronavirus and its economic impact affected investor sentiments.

The S&P BSE Sensex fell as much as 1,459.52 points (3.79 per cent) to 37,011.09, while the broader Nifty 50 crashed 441.60 points (3.92 per cent) to 10,827.40 during the early deals on Friday.

All the Sensex stocks were trading in a sea of red. Among the biggest contributors to Friday morning’s loss were HDFC twins comprising of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and HDFC Bank, oil-to-telecom behemoth Reliance Industries (RIL), ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank and State Bank of India (SBI).

Among the sectoral indices on NSE, the Nifty Bank index was the worst hit during the early morning trade, it was down over 1,200 points (4.2 per cent) at around 27,600 levels. The top draggers in the bank index were Yes Bank, RBL Bank, IndusInd Bank, SBI and Punjab National Bank.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)