Asian equity markets fell on Monday, reaching multi-year lows, as fears of a global recession grew following President Donald Trump's announcement of harsher-than-expected US tariffs.
Investor sentiment has deteriorated sharply across the region, with no signs of a resolution to the ongoing US-China trade dispute.
The sell-off was sparked by the White House's firm stance on imposing broad tariffs, combined with China's retaliatory measures, which included additional levies on US imports. China declared that the markets had spoken in their retaliation with levies on US goods.
Wall Street plunged on Friday, with US stock futures pointing to further declines. S&P 500 futures fell 4.2%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 3.5%, and Nasdaq futures fell 5.3%.
Indian Stock Market
The Indian stock market benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty 50, are expected to open sharply lower on Monday, tracking the global market crash.
The trends on Gift Nifty also point to a gap-down start for the Indian benchmark index. The Gift Nifty was trading around 22,094, representing a nearly 864-point discount from the previous close of the Nifty futures.
Japanese Markets
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell as much as 8.8% to a 1.5-year low of 30,792.74 — a level not seen since October 2023 — before recovering slightly to close 7.3% lower at 31,318.79. All 225 index constituents were in negative territory.
The broader Topix index also fell sharply, dropping 8% to 2,284.69. Trading in Japanese futures was temporarily halted earlier in the session when the market triggered circuit breakers.
Chinese and Hong Kong Markets
Mainland Chinese equities and Hong Kong stocks fell sharply amid growing concerns about a protracted trade war. The CSI300 blue-chip index in China fell 4.5%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 8% in early trading. The share prices of Alibaba and Tencent both fell by more than 8%.
Other Asian Markets
The South Korean Kospi index fell 4.34%, while the technology-heavy Kosdaq dropped 3.48%. Singapore's benchmark index opened 7% lower, heading for its worst single-day performance since March 2020, according to Re[orts.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysian stocks fell more than 4% in early trading, reaching their lowest level in 16 months. The Philippine stock market fell more than 4%, while Taiwan's market dropped nearly 10% in its first trading session since the latest US tariff announcement.
