Indian shares opened sharply lower on Monday as a weak July U.S. jobs report as well as disappointing earnings from the likes of Intel and Amazon ignited worries that the worlds largest economy could be falling into a recession under the weight of the Federal Reserves policy of high interest rates.
The benchmark S&P/BSE Sensex was down 1,550 points, or 1.9 percent, at 79,531 in early trade, mirroring a global sell-off. The broader NSE Nifty index dipped 478 points, or 1.9 percent, to 24,239.
LTIMindTree, Shriram Finance, Hindalco, ONGC and Tata Motors tumbled 3-4 percent in the Nifty pack while Britannia Industries and Sun Pharma both rose over 1 percent on defensive buying.
Bank of India slumped 4 percent as it reported a 10 percent rise in quarterly profit.
NTPC dropped 2.1 percent after 3.66 million shares of the company changed hands in a block trade.
Divis Laboratories fell 1.8 percent despite reporting 21 percent year-on-year growth in Q1 net profit.