Equity indices recover dramatically after trading halts for 45 minutes

Equity benchmark indices staged the biggest ever intra-day recovery on Friday afternoon after hitting a 10 per cent lower circuit.

At 1:15 pm, the S & P BSE Sensex was trading at 34,343 levels, up 1,564 points or 4.77 per cent. Earlier, the index hit the intra-day low of 29,388. The Nifty 50 was up by 432 points or 4.5 per cent at 10,022.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) stepped in quickly after the early morning rout and said the fall in Indian indices has been significantly lower than the stock market in other countries.

"SEBI and stock exchanges have a robust risk management framework in place which automatically gets triggered in response to movements in the indices (BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty) as well as individual stocks both in cash and derivatives market," it said in a statement.

Over the last few days, said SEBI, the Indian stock market has been moving in tandem with other global markets owing to concerns relating to COVID-19 pandemic, resultant fear of economic slowdown and recent fall in global crude prices.

Around noon, Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian said the current developments in stock market are related to global factors and do not reflect strong fundamentals of the Indian economy.

All sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange turned green with Nifty PSU bank gaining by over 11 per cent, pharma by 7 per cent, financial service by 5.8 per cent and metal by 4.4 per cent.

Among stocks, State Bank of India (SBI) surged ahead by 16.3 per cent to Rs 247.25 per share while Sun Pharma and Bharat Petroleum Corporation edged up by 13 per cent each.

The other prominent gainers were Grasim, HDFC. Cipla, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank and Maruti.

Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2,353 lower at 21,201, the S & P 500 tanked 9.5 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite ended 9.4 per cent lower at 7,202.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared coronavirus a global pandemic and US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the United States over COVID-19.

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