Indian Stock markets witnessed a bloodbath on Monday, April 7, due to the global trade war instigated by US President Donald Trump after he announced tariffs on all countries. The Sensex and Nifty fell frequently after Wall Street and other Asian markets like Japan, Singapore, and China saw large decreases today. In the early trade, both the Sensex and Nifty were down nearly 5%. Sensex was trading at 3,939.68 points to 71,425.01, while Nifty tumbled 1,160.8 points to 21,743.65. The shares of IT companies were most affected by the traffic war. Tata Steel dropped over 8%, followed by Tata Motors, which cracked more than 7%.
HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Consultancy Services, and Reliance Industries were the other companies most affected. The share market crash is the worst opening in the Indian market since the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Experts Explain Why Markets Are Crashing:
Stock markets worldwide have been trending below, and a blood bath was experienced on Monday after Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on all nations, including India. This raised investors' fears about the market's uncertainty, inflation, and recession.
Stock market expert Nirav Vakharia said the market crashed today due to confusion among investors and traders over the tariff war. "There is an atmosphere of confusion in the market due to US President Donald Trump imposing a tariff. Other countries are also retaliating and negotiating. India, too, says that it will negotiate with the US Administration. So, things will be clear in the next 2-3 days," Vakharia said.
"But right now, the situation is confusing and there is an atmosphere of fear that the countries which export to the US will face heavy duties...So, we can see a panic reaction in market. It seems that this reaction would continue unless something concrete comes out in next 2-3 days; until then, this market trend would continue," Vakharia told ANI.
Market Expert Sunil Shah said that China retaliated against US tariffs and imposed tariffs on around 33–34 items, which led to a market decline. He know investors are aware that if the trade war takes place, there no winners all are losers. "On Friday, the US market — which is the last to close — saw a sharp fall of 2200 points. The main reason was China's counteractions, as they imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, around 33–34 items. That immediately led to a market decline there because investors know very well that in a trade war, there are no winners," he said.
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Economist Akash Jindal claimed that the market crashed due to global trade wars due to reciprocal tariffs launched by US. He said Tarffis will lead the global economy into recession. "What we are seeing today in the markets is the impact of reciprocal tariffs launched by Donald Trump US Administration. Since the day they launched reciprocal tariffs, there has been retaliation globally. China has launched retaliatory tariffs, Europe may launch retaliatory tariffs. So, what has happened is a global trade war has been initiated. So, we are in the days of global trade war. This global trade war can lead global economy into recession," Jindal said.
While speaking to the news agency ANI, Jindal praised the Indian economy. "As far as the Indian economy is concerned, the Indian economy is performing very well. Our GDP growth numbers revised for 2023-24 have been 9.2%. Our GST collections have been good for the past three months, and our Income Tax collections dated 16th March 2025 have been very good."
"But we are a part of global economy. Because of these reciprocal tariffs and the retaliation by China, and possible retaliation by other countries, there is a global trade war and if global economy goes into recession, India also would be indirectly impacted because we are a part of the global economy," Jindal explained why Indian markets crashed.
"As far as reversal is concerned, reversal would happen only when there can be a U-turn or something which happens in the US economy which goes against these tariffs. So, I think US may re-analyze things and maybe there is a U-turn, that can definitely revive the global economy," he added.
SKI Capital Managing Director (MD) Narinder Wadhwa said, "This follows the US tariffs, Trump's tariffs. On Friday, we saw a major downtrend in the US markets. When the markets open today, there was a lower circuit in Japanese market as well as Korean market. Hang Seng was also down 10%. We have also opened down, but comparatively, the impact is not that much. We are down by 4% and going forward, there is a murmur, a buzz that these tariffs are going to be deferred by three months."
"So, hoping that some sense will prevail because it's these tariffs are going to disrupt the world capital market by the economies also. There are certain sectors where Indian has an advantage as far as tariff arbitrage is concerned, these sectors are textiles as well as pharmaceuticals or IT also. So, we see if these prevail, then we have advantage in few other sectors also."
On the stock market crash, Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities, said, "...We will advise that investors should neither panic nor really rush to buy... Now, negotiations between nations that have been impacted by President Trump's measures cannot be ruled out, so it will be prudent to see how things play out. In summary, exercising caution is the name of the game, and that's what history shows us."