Investors' wealth eroded sharply by Rs 20.16 lakh crore on Monday morning as the benchmark indices faced heavy drubbing, with the Sensex dropping over 5 per cent, amid a global market meltdown due to growing trade war concerns.

The 30-share BSE benchmark tumbled 3,939.68 points or 5.22 per cent to 71,425.01 in early trade.

Mirroring the bearish trend in equities, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms declined sharply by Rs 20,16,293.53 crore to Rs 3,83,18,592.93 crore (USD 4.50 trillion) during the morning trade.

All the Sensex firms were trading lower. Tata Steel and Tata Motors dropped over 10 per cent each. Larsen & Toubro, HCL Technologies, Adani Ports, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries and Mahindra & Mahindra were the other big laggards.

In Asian markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tanked more than 11 per cent, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 plunged 7 per cent, Shanghai SSE Composite index dropped nearly 7 per cent and South Korea's Kospi sank over 5 per cent.

US markets ended significantly lower on Friday. The S&P 500 tanked 5.97 per cent, Nasdaq composite slumped 5.82 per cent, and the Dow tumbled 5.50 per cent on Friday.

"Globally markets are going through heightened volatility caused by extreme uncertainty. No one has a clue about how this turbulence caused by Trump's tariffs will evolve. Wait and watch would be the best strategy in this turbulent phase of the market," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dropped 2.76 per cent to USD 63.77 a barrel.

The BSE smallcap gauge cracked 6.62 per cent, and the midcap index tanked 5.01 per cent.

All the BSE sectoral indices were trading in negative territory. Metal tumbled nearly 8 per cent, industrials dropped 6.39 per cent, commodities (6.14 per cent), IT (5.71 per cent), BSE Focused IT (5.57 per cent), consumer discretionary (5.42 per cent) and teck (4.84 per cent).