Both the S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 plunged 10percent immediately after opening today, leading to a halt in trading, which resumed after 45 minutes.

At 10:58am the Sensex was at 26,992.80 points (-9.77%), while the Nifty benchmark wsa at 7,944.05 (-9.16%).  This triggered the lower circuit breaker as India enters a lockdown with several other countries amidst the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.

At 11:05am, the Sensex was further down to 26,974.28 points, while the broader Nifty was at 7,896.05 points.

Nifty Bank index that is made up of 12 banks, including SBI, HDFC, ICICI, was down 12.99 percent.  All the other 10 sectoral indices on NSE suffered losses before the trading was halted.

This trading halt was the second in a period of seven trading sessions as the World Markets suffered their worst battering since 2008-09. With 341 positive cases and 7  death as of day end March 22, many of India's states and towns will stay under lockdown.  Investors are silently assessing the policy measures to curb the spread of COVID-19  amid fears that the spread of the pandemic may lead to a global economic recession. More corrections are being expected. More lockdowns across Asian countries have jolted the Asian indices.