Indian benchmark equity indexes traded sharply lower on Thursday tracking Asian peers where trade sentiments have taken a hit after the Trump administration threatened to expand tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

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The BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty 50, opened flat on Wednesday and fell sharply afterwards with the 30-share BSE index losing over 123 points to 37,398.10 in initial trade. The 50-share index dropped below the 11,350 mark, losing 38.20 points to 11,308.

Weakness in PSU Bank and bank shares along with metal and auto stocks added to the fall.

Both midcaps were lower by nearly 0.6 percent, with the BSE MidCap being lower by 95 points and the Nifty MidCap trading lower by 132 points.

Only two out of 19 sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in the positive territory.

On the NSE, all broad market indices traded lower, while among sectoral indices, maximum weakness was seen in auto at 1.55 percent, followed by PSU bank and metal at 1.35 percent each. Nifty Bank was down by 0.70 percent, fin service was lower by 0.75 percent. Only Nifty Pharma traded higher at 0.88 percent, while FMCG was at 0.24 percent higher.

Among gainers, Dr Reddy's Labs, Sun Pharma, Lupin and HPCL and BPCL were leading on the Nifty, while Power Grid Corp, Coal India, Hindustan Unilever, IndusInd Bank were higher on Sensex. Index laggards included Grasim, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Yes Bank, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, down by up to 2.42 percent.

The Indian rupee opened stronger against the US dollar at 68.37, a day after the Reserve Bank of India raised key lending rates to tame inflation, while retaining a neutral policy stance. The rupee had closed at 68.43 on Wednesday.

Asian markets fell sharply after trade war concerns came back to haunt investors. Japan's Nikkei was down by 0.40 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng has tanked by almost 500 points or 1.7 percent. South Korea's Kospi was down by over 1.2 percent.

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