The BSE benchmark Sensex opened in the red, down 440 points, on Friday. The NSE Nifty cracked below the 15,000-level in early trade in line with a slump in other Asian markets as US bond market turmoil continued to fan investor worries around the world.

The Sensex traded at 50,405.99, over 440.09 points or 0.87 per cent below Thursday’s close, in the opening session. The NSE barometer quoted 124.75 points or 0.83 per cent lower at 14,956.

On the Sensex chart, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, PowerGrid and HDFC Bank were the biggest laggards – down as much as 3 per cent – while 21 shares traded in the red.

Equities continued their slump on Friday in other Asian markets following a retreat on the Wall Street amid worries over rising yields in the US bond markets.

“The ‘bond bears versus equity bulls’ game continues in the US market with similar reverberations in other developed and emerging markets. The highly valued Nasdaq appears to be in a short-phase of reversion to mean, having declined 10 per cent from record highs,” says VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. “The US 10-year yield has again spiked to 1.575 per cent, giving further ammunition to bond bears.”

Back home, both foreign and domestic institutional investors turned sellers on Thursday, impacting market sentiments. The BSE benchmark shed 598.57 points or 1.16 per cent, and the Nifty lost 164.85 points or 1.08 per cent by the close on Thursday.

Foreign institutional investors (FII) had offloaded equities worth Rs 223.11 crore on a net basis in the Indian capital markets on Thursday, according to exchange data.

Global crude oil benchmark Brent traded 0.77 per cent higher at $64.32 per barrel on Friday.