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New Delhi: India imports around 50% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) requirements from West Asia, and most of it is sourced from Qatar. With the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Ras Laffan industrial City, a large chunk of India's imports are halted. This supply crunch may impact several downstream industries in India including fertilizers and steel.

fertilizer. For plants, nitrogen is a vital nutrient for growth—without it they cannot convert sunlight into energy. If all crops knew how to synthesize nitrogen from the air (which is available freely), there would be no need for urea.

FPIs have remained underweight in India for a second straight year, with their ownership in National Stock Exchange-listed companies falling to a 15.5-year low of 16.7% in the December 2025 quarter, from 17.4% a year ago, NSE data showed."De-escalation aside, certain data points pertaining to the conflict seem to have become more severe, resulting in FPIs moving out of risky emerging market (EM) assets to the safety of the dollar," said Swarup Mohanty, chief executive of asset management company Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India).Mohanty said the latest attrition has come on top of the tech and AI impact on India, which had been “playing on the FPIs' mind”. Jyoti Jaipuria, founder of portfolio management services firm Valentis Advisors, attributed the plunge in FPI equity assets to a reduction in earnings visibility due to the country's "particular susceptibility" to oil price shocks, and to slowing flows to EMs specifically and to equities in general, consequent to the conflict.Since the start of the war and the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Brent crude futures have surged 56% to $112.19 a barrel as of Friday, dragging the rupee down 3% to 93.71 against the US dollar on concerns over the impact of high crude prices on India’s current account deficit (CAD).A $10-per-barrel increase in oil prices raises India's CAD as a proportion of its gross domestic product by 0.4%, according to Jaipuria.The surge in crude and the rupee’s fall dragged the benchmark Nifty down 8.2% to 23,114.5 on Friday.

There is a paradox at the heart of the US economy. As the federal government imposes sweeping tariffs, signals hostility to multilateral trade and unnerves long-term investors with erratic policymaking, one state has emerged as the most reliable US address for global capital: California, the world’s fourth-largest economy and America’s second-largest exporting state with $188 billion in annual goods exports.

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As reports emerged last week on which ships Iran had let through the Strait of Hormuz, India-bound carriers of LPG among them, one group was no surprise: vessels carrying Iranian crude exports. By data analytics firm Kpler’s estimate, Iran’s oil shipments kept up an average daily pace of 1.3-1.4 million barrels in March amid hostilities with the US and Israel. Most of it was headed for China, reportedly, bought by small refiners paying in Chinese yuan.

Don ko samajana mushkil hi nahi namumkin bhi hai (Understanding Don is not just difficult, but impossible), quipped market veteran Nilesh Shah, MD of Kotak Mahindra AMC, as conflicting statements on the Iran war emanated from US President Donald Trump over the weekend.Inspired by a dialogue from the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan starrer Don, it encapsulates the uncertainty among India's investors and traders amid frequent changes in President Trump's stance on the conflict's objectives and duration.In a post on Truth Social on Friday, the US President said he was considering ‘winding down’ military operations in the Middle East after getting ‘very close’ to meeting the US' objectives.While investors could see this as a positive sign, they would again be flummoxed by Trump's plan to deploy more troops to the region, explained Shah.Hapless investors and traders have sought to deal with frequent flip-flops preceding Trump's latest comments by initiating an options strategy that enables them to profit from sharp market movements in either direction.Known as a long straddle in options parlance, the strategy aims to profit from a steep move in the Nifty on either side of 23100 by this Monday or Tuesday.This is borne by a 58% rise in open or outstanding positions on the 23100 call and a 79% rise in the 23100 put, per National Stock Exchange (NSE) data as of Friday closing.The market closed at 23114.5 on Friday (20 March), down 8.2% over the past three weeks since the war began.

Five major central banks—the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the Bank of Japan—met this week to deliver their rate decisions. Four of the five opted to pause and continue with existing policy rates.

New Delhi: India’s top two-wheeler makers are bracing for pressure on margins and demand, as a surge in commodity costs linked to the ongoing West Asia war coincides with the impending withdrawal of electric vehicle (EV) subsidies. The twin blow has led to concerns that the companies, including TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp, may be forced to raise prices, absorb cost pressures, or risk slowing adoption of EVs.Analysts and industry executives note that the removal of subsidies under the government's PM E-Drive scheme from April can lead to price hikes of up to ₹5,000 for electric two wheelers.

One way or the other, an extended West Asia war will impact earnings growth, said Ajay Tyagi, senior executive vice president and head of Equity at UTI Asset Management Co.He believes, “If markets remain flat or correct further, leading to poor two-three year returns, SIP (systematic investment plan) flows may slow down”.Tyagi, who directly manages about ₹2.5 trillion worth of assets, explained that while the structural shift of household savings into markets remains strong, it will see ebbs and flows rather than move in a straight line.He said that SIP inflows, currently around $3 billion, will have their own cycles and are unlikely to keep rising indefinitely.Edited excerpts:For large caps, the correction is mostly over, as they have reached a fair valuation zone. While not yet ‘cheap’, which would mean falling below long-term averages, they are close enough to offer comfort.

L&T, said in a press briefing on Saturday, the company’s first major status update since the US-Israel-Iran war broke out on 28 February.Most of the work suspension has been voluntary, he said, to ensure the safety of the company’s staff. At two sites, customers recommended temporarily halting work, he added.The company has not yet evacuated any staff from the region, but it is also not sending new people there from India at the moment, he said.

In the shadow of the Iran war, with crude hovering around $100 a barrel, the allure of a quick fix for energy inflation is understandable. But intervening directly in financial markets by taking a bearish short position in oil—which the US Treasury says it’s been discussing—is a terrible idea. Selling oil futures would be a desperate ploy, born of panic about rising US gasoline and diesel retail prices ahead of the midterm elections.

IBM closed the buyout of Confluent, a US-based data streaming company. At $11 billion, this is IBM’s second-largest acquisition in recent years, after the Red Hat buyout in 2019 for $34 billion. The deal is expected to help IBM boost Agentic AI capabilities.As companies shift from AI pilots to production, they struggle with fragmented data.

, born as Robert Prevost in Chicago and known for most of his life as “Bob,” has had a quiet start to his pontificate. But with the world facing crisis after crisis, the first-ever American pope is stepping up his efforts at moral suasion in defense of a fading international order that the American president, among other leaders, is rapidly dismantling.The papacy has always been political.

”The back-and-forth was the latest demonstration of one of the dangers that AI technology has posed to global affairs: Not only can AI fakery deceive millions online, but real videos can also be dismissed as AI-generated lies,” a New York Times report said. The phenomenon, known as the “liar’s dividend,” has proliferated during the current West Asia conflict, with thousands of videos leaving watchers unable to tell the difference.As far as can be verified, Netanyahu appears hale and hearty.Meanwhile, Israel assassinated two top Iranians: Ali Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force.The killings underscore a problem highlighted by US President Donald Trump on Friday: there are few leaders left in Iran to negotiate an end to the war.

From India doubling down on fertilizer imports from non-West Asia sources to the US Federal Reserve decision to pause rates, the leadership crisis at HDFC Bank and youth unemployment in India rising to a four-month high in February—here’s a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.After LPG, fertilizers are emerging as the next major pressure point for India as it navigates the fallout of the West Asia conflict. The government is looking to diversify sourcing by stepping up purchases from countries such as Indonesia, Belarus, Morocco and China, Mint reported.

Organised jewellery retailers are expanding into men’s and kids’ lines, a niche long dominated by digital-first brands, to unlock new growth beyond their women’s segment.Titan Company Ltd’s Mia by Tanishq, traditionally positioned as a women-focused brand, plans to introduce a dedicated range of men’s and kids' fashion jewellery as part of its category expansion this year.“We are seeing increasing demand for men’s and kids’ range, and that’s why you will see a dedicated category for these two sometime this year,” said Shyamala Ramanan, business head of Mia by Tanisq, in an interview with Mint, adding that customers are already walking into stores enquiring about such offerings.The move reflects a broader shift underway in India’s jewellery market. Brands are targeting men and kids to drive growth, fuelled by shifting tastes, new gifting trends, and a push to recruit younger, first-time buyers.The global men’s jewellery market was valued at $48.56 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.9% between 2025 and 2034, reflecting strong momentum worldwide, according to Polaris Market Research, a US-based market research firm.For Mia, the category will largely be built around 9–14 karat gold, positioning it as lightweight, design-led jewellery rather than investment-driven purchases.

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₹16,550 crore during the period due to channel destocking in Q3, while Ebitda fell a sharper 28% to ₹1,470 crore, hit by elevated copper and aluminium prices and higher other expenses.A recovery is expected in FY27, supported by price hikes of 2-9% across products and stronger revenue growth. Centrum Broking estimates earnings per share (EPS) growth of 40% and 23% for FY27 and FY28, respectively, while JM Financial Institutional Securities pegs growth at 31% and 13%.Revenue growth is expected to be driven by portfolio expansion, premiumisation and exports.

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crude prices translates quickly into higher fuel costs. In the US, for instance, a gallon of regular petrol that averaged $2.94 in February now costs $3.58—a 20% increase—according to AAA Fuel Prices, a retail fuel price tracker from the American Automobile Association.In contrast, petrol in cities like Mumbai has held steady at around ₹103 per litre in recent weeks.At the core of this stability are state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) such as Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum.When international prices surge, these companies often absorb the increase instead of passing it on immediately to consumers.According to Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, "In the interest of social stability and to shield the common citizen from sudden inflationary shocks, domestic oil marketing companies often maintain steady product prices even as global crude costs climb.