Indian Bourses continued their downward spiral on Monday following a recovery rally last Friday. The Mumbai Stock Exchange’s 30-share index, Sensex, crashed 2,182 points in early trade while the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty fell by over 600 points.
The Sensex later recovered some lost ground, trading down 1,830 points at 32,298. All indices were down on the BSE except the pharmaceutical index. The Nifty was trading at 9,450, down 504 points.
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government and the Reserve Bank of India are monitoring the situation arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic and that certain relief measures are likely to be announced on Monday.
The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) have already taken emergency measures to counter the Covid-19 impact on the economy.
In a second emergency move late Sunday (15 March) evening, the US Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark interest rate to zero. In the first emergency rate cut announced by the Fed Reserve two weeks ago, interest rates were cut by 50 basis points. The ECB is yet to announce a rate cut.