US-China tariff war pulls down global markets

With the intensified trade war between the US and China making headlines, global indices took a major plunge in Friday’ s trade session.

In the intraday trade on Friday, Japan Nikkei dipped by nearly 5 per cent, Dow Jones, Nasdaq and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were down by around 3 per cent; while, FTSE, CAC 40 and DAX 30 were also trading in the negative territory.

The Indian benchmark indices S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 both dipped by over 2 per cent, with top stocks including Union Bank, SAIL, Jindal Steel and Tata Steel plunging by over 7 per cent on the bourses.

The US imposed import tariff on Chinese goods worth US$ 60 billion coming to the US. The US President Donald Trump accused China of high-tech thievery on Thursday. In response to this, China announced a list of goods imported from US, including pork, apples and steel pipe, that could attract higher import duties.

Along side the international trade turbulence, the Facebook data scandal’s effect also prevailed in the global stock markets. On the domestic front, news of probe into loan defaults and scams huddled the markets with further negative news.