Global markets too in the red

It was not just Indian stock markets that witnessed a bloodbath on Thursday — global equities too were trading in the red.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday was down close to one per cent. On Thursday, the Hang Seng, Nikkei, CAC and FTSE were all in the negative territory.

The turmoil in Libya sent oil prices to their highest in nearly two and a half years, threatening global economic growth.

“With the West Asia burning, there is only one way that the crude oil will go. And with crude oil rising at this pace, there is just one way that our markets will go, and that is down,” said Mr Saurabh Mukherjea, Head of Equities at Ambit Capital.

At 8-30 p.m. IST, the Dow was down 0.13 per cent, the UK FTSE 0.1 per cent, France's CAC by 0.1 per cent and the German DAX by 1.06 per cent.