As the bourses opened on Friday, both Sensex and Nifty hit lower circuit by dropping 10 per cent – Sensex was down 3091 points and Nifty crashed 966 points. When it reopened after 45 minutes, though the bellwether indices showed some recovery, selling continued in many stocks.

At 11.30, 354 stocks in BSE 5000 were in red with 8 stocks down 10 per cent or more.

Stocks that have lost the most today from the BSE 500 basket include (at 11.30 am) – Future Retail, GHCL, Varroc Engineering, Ashoka Buildcon, Mangalore Refinery & Petrochem and Prag Milk Foods.

None spared!

In the market rout across the globe, even the safest asset classes have not been spared. Investors who took shelter in gold and other precious metals as equity markets took a beating, have taken a hit too.

Over the last one week, while gold and silver are down five per cent and nine per cent respectively, platinum is down 12 per cent. Palladium has fallen by a sharp 24 per cent.

Led by crude, the all commodities have slumped. The Reuters CRB Commodity Index is down 9 per cent since last Friday.

Bitcoin shares which since last year has got the ‘safe-haven’ status and was moving higher with gold has been battered badly over the last few market sessions. It is down about 45 per cent (bitcoin/USD) since last one week – outpacing the loss in most other asset classes.

Investors globally have been selling their bonds too to finance equity positions or losses in other assets. US Treasury (10 year) yield has risen sharply since last Friday. It is up from 0.88 per cent to 0.74 per cent now.

It appears that over-leveraged traders in the equity market are selling all their other assets to meet margin calls.