Iran Financial News

Stock market recap: The Indian equity markets witnessed a significant sell-off on Monday, as Nifty 50 plummeted 422.40 points (1.73%) to close at 24,028.05, while Sensex crashed 1,352.74 points (1.71%) to finish at 77,566.16.The downturn was primarily triggered by escalating geopolitical tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran, which sent Brent crude prices soaring above $114 per barrel. This energy shock, coupled with the Indian rupee hitting a record low of 92.35, sparked broad-based risk aversion.The advance-decline ratio was heavily skewed toward the bears, with over four stocks declining for every one that advanced, reflecting deep-seated weakness across the broader market.On the sectoral front, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Auto were the worst laggards, with heavyweights like SBI and Tata Motors facing intense pressure.

crude oil was trading at a $6.86 per barrel discount to the May contract of $104.53 at the time of writing. On 27 February, a day before the war began, it was just the opposite: the June contract was at a slight premium of 39 cents to the May contract, which quoted at $72.48, as per Bloomberg.Such flipping of discounts between near and far months—backwardation or inversion in technical parlance—points to supply disruptions due to the West Asia war.

Iran’s strategy in its war with the US and Israel is clear: Impose an intolerable economic cost on US President Donald Trump, forcing him to abandon his ‘war of choice’ as American petrol prices surge. Is there any way the Islamic Republic’s blueprint for survival can fail? Yes, if its old regional nemesis, Saudi Arabia, can step in to cushion the global oil market.Enter the East-West pipeline, a 1,200km conduit crisscrossing the Arabian Peninsula from the Gulf to the Red Sea. Its raison d’être is to meet this historic moment.

"Khamenei Out.” That was the title of an event wager on the prediction market Kalshi. On the website of its rival, Polymarket, wagers were being made on “the timing of the Iran war” just before it began. Posts by Bubblemaps, a blockchain analytics tool, on X indicate that six accounts collectively pocketed $1.2 million in profit from Polymarket bets.

₹60 per 14.2 kg cylinder, taking them to the highest level since 29 August 2023.According to Nomura, every $10 per barrel increase in oil prices could shave 15 basis points off India’s growth and add 50 basis points to retail inflation. With oil prices already up nearly $50 per barrel since the start of the year, the impact on India’s growth-inflation dynamics could be significant.The Iran conflict could prove more disruptive to oil markets beyond the initial price spike than the Russia-Ukraine war.

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NEW DELHI: India builds some of the world’s fastest expanding highway networks but depends on imports for a large share of the bitumen used to bind asphalt.The country needs about 9 million tonnes of bitumen each year for road construction. In FY25, domestic production was 5.3 million tonnes, with the rest imported—largely from West Asia, a region currently facing conflict.Against this backdrop, bio-bitumen, an alternative derived from biomass, could replace up to a third of petroleum-based bitumen, potentially reducing India’s import dependence.

A subtle twist in the tale: The strength of the US dollar as measured by the Dollar Index (DXY) peaked at 114 in September 2022, a 20-year high. It has been falling since then, hitting 97 on 28 February 2026, the start of the Iran war. DXY measures the dollar’s strength against a basket of currencies.

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Every month, Mint Plain Facts brings out an update on key global data to thread together the biggest developments in the world that are worth paying attention to. The accompanying analysis and charts explain how each story is creating ripples on the global stage, where it is headed in the coming weeks, and whether it can impact India.Here are the five key global events:After US and Israel air strikes on 28 February killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the West Asian nation has been fighting a high-risk survival war.It has responded to the US-Israel offensive, mostly targeting its capital, Tehran, by attacking nearly all nearby Gulf countries, widening the conflict.

Mint on Friday on the sidelines of a press conference to announce a partnership with Salesforce. A supplementary power purchase agreement (SPPA) with Gujarat and other client states should happen “very quickly,” he said, declining to elaborate further.The ultra mega power project in the coastal town has been shut since July 2025 amid disagreements with client states—Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana—over the pass through of the high cost of Indonesian coal.Analysts at brokerage IIFL say a combination of rising power demand ahead of summer and the possibility of higher fuel prices due to the war in West Asia could strengthen Tata Power’s negotiating position this time.

Stock market recap: A day after posting gains of more than 1% each, India’s benchmark indices—the Sensex and the Nifty 50—resumed their decline on Friday as investors booked profits amid persistent concerns over the US-Iran conflict, a spike in crude oil prices and heavy foreign capital outflows.The Sensex plunged 1,097 points, or 1.4%, to close at 78,918.90, while the Nifty 50 fell 315 points, or 1.3%, to 24,450.45. Mid- and small-cap stocks, however, outperformed the benchmarks despite ending in the red.

bullish investors and traders are carrying forward fewer long positions despite the market falling nearly 3% since the war began last Saturday through 24,450.45 last Friday.The value of the marketwide calls exceeded that of marketwide puts by ₹2.71 trillion on Friday, down from ₹4.34 trillion a week ago before the war began, said Rohit Srivastava, founder of analytics firm IndiaCharts."This decline clearly indicates that bulls are not buying the dip, in turn reflecting the lingering uncertainty among investors amid the escalation of the West Asia conflict," said Srivastava.He added that the figure of ₹2.71 trillion worth of excess calls over puts was close to the historic mean of ₹2.5-2.6 trillion, an "anomaly" after the recent market fall.

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If you thought 2025 was a tough transition, 2026 now seems to have plenty more surprises in store. India, in particular, has to trek through two tricky minefields over the next 10 months: energy security and technological flux. These two prickly issues will have to fight for the political leadership’s mind-space, cluttered as it is with tricky geopolitics, rising unemployment, sticky economic growth and an always-on electoral cycle.

US President Donald J. Trump’s extraordinary gamble in attacking Iran and risking a wider conflagration in West Asia dials up the economic hazards facing the US economy from ‘very high”’ to ‘extreme.’ This new stress compounds a series of other pressures already facing the economy, which is now even more unlikely to emerge unscathed.The near danger is a setback in financial markets that gets out of hand. In many ways, some such reversal was already overdue, given the apparent overvaluation of US equities, the weight placed by tariffs on the economy’s back, a still-deteriorating fiscal outlook and stubborn inflation.

In international relations, manifestly illegal government action can sometimes be morally defensible. While historical examples of legitimacy trumping legality are few and far between, they do exist.

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Write to Ian Salisbury at [email protected] U.S.-Israel war against Iran that began on Feb. 28 has investors worried about broader fallout. On Friday, oil prices hit a psychologically important $90 a barrel for the first time in two years as Kuwait cut output.