Just when it seemed that some steadiness has returned to the stock markets, Sensex and Nifty suffered huge losses today amid a renewed global sell off. The BSE benchmark index Sensex fell over 550 points to touch an intra day low of 33,849 while the NSE Nifty dropped below 10,400. Markets across Asia tumbled today, after the Wall Street suffered yet another big slide. The US markets remained the epicentre of the global sell off, with the Dow plunging 4.1 per cent overnight. The trigger for the global sell off has been strong US jobs data, which has spurred fears of rising inflation and ultimately more US central bank rate hikes. Thursday, the Sensex had risen nearly 1 per cent, snapping seven sessions of fall.The Indian rupee also opened with a loss of 15 paise at Rupees 64 and 41 paise against the dollar on fears that the regime of lower borrowing costs is nearing its end with a quicker removal of easy monetary policy by central banks worldwide.