US market suffers Covid-like crash post 'Liberation Day'; Asian indices tumble on fears of recession 

The 'Liberation Day' announcements on April 2 brought back memories of a Covid-like crash in the US market on Thursday. The Wall Street's benchmark indexes clocked their biggest one-day percentage losses since 2020 after US President Donald Trump's fresh tariffs on trading partners sparked fears of a full-blown trade war and a global recession. 

Overnight, US markets tumbled with NASDAQ Composite Index slipping 1050.44 pts or 5.97% to 16,550 and S&P 500 index ending 274 points lower at 5,396. 

Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,679 points or 4% to 40,545 on Thursday.

S&P 500 lost $2.4 trillion while Nasdaq Composite Index saw its biggest daily fall since March 2020. 

Goldman Sachs said the tariffs were a threat to the global economic growth. The US tariffs will weigh on global growth and prompt the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates more aggressively than previously expected, said the US-based financial services firm. 

Asian markets 

Asian markets were in a turmoil today as negative sentiment in the US market cast a spillover effect on its global counterparts. 

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Thursday issued a warning that the new tariffs would shrink global trade by 1% in 2025. This further dampened sentiment in the Asian markets. 

The Indian market tanked in early deals today with Sensex opening lower for the second straight session. Sensex crashed 490 points to 75,805 and Nifty declined 186 points to 23,055 in early trade.

On the outlook of Indian market, V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, "Markets are going through heightened uncertainty, which is likely to last some time. A trade war has been triggered by Trump and retaliatory tariffs from China, EU and others are on the cards. This will only extend the period of uncertainty and confusion in the market. It appears that contraction in global trade and decline in global growth are inevitable in the present context. Decline in global growth will impact India’s growth, too, even though we might do better than other large economies."

"Investors can wait for the dust to settle down. For the short-term, it would be better to focus on domestic consumption driven themes and pharma in the externally-linked segments," he added. 

Japan's Nikkei was trading 1201 pts lower at 33,534. Japan which would be charged 24% additional tariffs had condemned the move and promised 'bold and speedy' response to Trump's surprise tariffs.

Singapore's Strait Times slipped 117 pts to 3,825. Kospi was down 37 pts to 2,448. 

European markets 

On Thursday, European markets too felt the heat of Trump's fresh tariffs. UK’s FTSE ended 134 pts lower at 8,474. France's CAC slipped 260 pts to 7,599 and DAX crashed 673 points to 21,717.