Indian equity benchmarks made gap-down opening on Thursday with Sensex and Nifty were trading over 2% lower in early deals as the traders turned wary after US President Donald Trump’s address. Donald Trump, in his first national address since the war began, signalled continued aggressive military action and warned that U.S. strikes on Iran would persist for the next few weeks, raising fears of further escalation rather than de-escalation. Market sentiments were further weighed down by persistent foreign fund outflows and elevated crude oil prices. According to exchange data, on Wednesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 8,331.15 crore. On the global front, Asian markets were trading lower as geopolitical tensions increased after the US president's address.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 71667.10, down by 1467.22 points or 2.01% after trading in a range of 71608.48 and 72262.05. All the 30 stocks were declining on the index.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty down by 3.60%, Healthcare down by 3.08%, Industrials down by 2.93%, Metal down by 2.79% and PSU down by 2.74%, while there was no gainer on the BSE sectoral front.

The top losers on the Sensex were Interglobe Aviation down by 4.46%, Sun Pharma down by 4.13%, Eternal down by 3.36%, Larsen & Toubro down by 3.36% and Adani Ports & SEZ down by 3.31%.

Meanwhile, after reviewing evolving market conditions, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with further measures aimed at authorised dealers (ADs) in response to the sharp depreciation of the rupee. The measures are effective immediately. The actions come days after the rupee breached the psychologically important Rs 95 to a US dollar mark in intra-day trade on March 30. 

Authorised dealers (ADs) -- banks authorised by RBI to deal in foreign exchange -- will not be able to offer non-deliverable derivative contracts involving the Indian rupee to resident or non-resident users. They may, however, continue to offer deliverable foreign exchange derivative contracts to users to meet their hedging requirements, provided that users do not undertake offsetting non-deliverable derivative positions. The ADs should not permit a user to rebook any foreign exchange derivative contract, whether deliverable or non-deliverable, which is cancelled after the date of issuance of these instructions.

For this purpose, the ADs may call for such information or documents from users as they deem necessary for complying with the requirements. They should not undertake any foreign exchange derivative contract with their related parties, it said, clarifying that 'related parties' shall have the same meaning as assigned to it under the Indian Accounting Standard (Ind AS) 24 'Related Party Disclosures or International Accounting Standard (IAS) 24' Related Party Disclosures or any other equivalent accounting standards.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22221.15, down by 458.25 points or 2.02% after trading in a range of 22209.15 and 22394.65. There was only 1 stock advancing against 49 stocks declining on the index.

The sole gainer on Nifty was TCS up by 0.05%, while Interglobe Aviation down by 4.44%, Sun Pharma down by 4.04%, Shriram Finance down by 3.70%, Larsen & Toubro down by 3.45% and Adani Ports & SEZ down by 3.32% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading lower; Nikkei 225 slipped 1135.68 points or 2.11% to 52,604.00, Taiwan Weighted lost 587.73 points or 1.77% to 32,587.09, Hang Seng declined 262.03 points or 1.05% to 25,032.00, KOSPI dropped 219.04 points or 4% to 5,259.66, Jakarta Composite fell 88.9 points or 1.24% to 7,095.54, Straits Times weakened 39.08 points or 0.79% to 4,936.75 and Shanghai Composite was down by 20.95 points or 0.53% to 3,927.60.