Indian equity benchmarks made a gap-down start on Friday tracking weakness across global equities, amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and rising crude oil prices. Barring the metal space, losses across sectors pulled the headline indices lower.

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NSE

The Sensex opened 449.1 points or 0.8 percent lower at 54,653.6 and the Nifty50 began the day at 16,339.5, down 158.6 points or one percent from its previous close.

A fire broke out in a training building outside the largest nuclear power plant in Europe during intense fighting between the two forces. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels at the plant.

At 9:19 am, both headline indices were down 1.5 percent. The 30-scrip index was down 828.3 points at 54,274.4 and the broader Nfity50 benchmark was at 16,256.2, down 241.9 points.

Asian Paints, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki, Axis Bank, Eicher, Wipro and Titan -- down between 2.2 percent and 3.8 percent -- were the top blue-chip laggards. Only five stocks in the Nifty50 pack were above the flatline: Hindalco, Tata Steel, IPL, NTPC and JSW Steel, up between 0.2 percent and one percent.

Infosys, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Asian Paints were the biggest drags for both indices.

"The entire situation has got extremely cloudy and uncertain. Whatever we are seeing in the commodity markets is definitely going to have an impact on corporate earnings and the news headlines are so depressing, which are going to impact the sentiment as well," said Dipan Mehta, Director at Elixir Equities.

The India VIX -- known in market parlance as the fear index -- was down 5.4 percent at 29.7. Last week, Russia's move to invade Ukraine had sent the volatility index soaring to a 20-month high of 34.

Tremors made their way to broader markets, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices down more than one percent each.

Global markets

Equities in other Asian markets suffered deep losses in early hours. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.6 percent at the last count. Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 2.6, Hong Kong's Hang Seng 2.5 percent and China's Shanghai Composite 0.7 percent.

S&P 500 futures fell one percent. Overnight on Wall Street, the three main indices fell 0.3-1.6 percent dragged by growth stocks such as Tesla and Amazon.

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