War Financial News

Write to Shaina Mishkin at [email protected] WeekOn Monday, day 10 of the war in Iran, Gulf states cut oil output, global prices surged over $100 a barrel, and G-7 finance ministers met to discus the largest release of oil reserves ever. Iran named the late Ayatollah Khamenei’s son supreme leader. Stocks plunged, then reversed after President Trump said the war wouldn’t last “very long.” But stocks fell again as oil rose, despite the reserve release and U.S.

Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. US President Donald Trump warned that oil infrastructure on the island could be next if Iran disrupted shipping in the region.Facing adversaries that far outstrip it in firepower and military might, Iran appears to have chosen its targets carefully.The first is international fuel supplies.Iran has attacked at least 16 ships in the Strait of Hormuz since the war began on 28 February.

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₹19,974.9 crore in two weeks, according to NSE data.The short position is close to the record high of 231,796 contracts seen on 24 February last year, when markets were roiled by proposed Trump tariffs, per data from analytical firm IndiaCharts."These are hedges taken by large funds that tend to be buyers of EMs (emerging markets) like India," said U.R. Bhat, founder of investment platform Alphaniti Fintech.

“The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”—All the President’s MenAmerican Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, took to social media Tuesday night to share takeaways from a classified briefing the White House shared with him and other legislators about the Iran war.“I obviously can’t disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are,” he noted, emphasizing that regime change in Iran is no longer in the cards. “They are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime—probably a MORE anti-American hardline regime—will still be in charge.”Murphy also said US President Donald Trump’s administration no longer intends to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

West Asia conflict has evolved in public perception—from a regional crisis, to a global disruption, and now to a household concern.Data suggests that search interest has gradually moved from general curiosity about the war to practical concerns about energy and cooking alternatives.Here’s a look at how India is exploring the unfolding situation through search trends.While the impact of conflict in West Asia wasn’t immediate for common Indians, it is now being felt in Indian kitchens. Despite the government’s assurances, images of long queues to get LPG cylinders are emerging from many parts of the country.In the virtual world, the panic is evident in Google searches, with interest in terms like LPG shortage, LPG prices, induction cooktop, and induction stove surging dramatically over the past few days.In the case of induction stoves and cooktops, the trend is not restricted to just Google searches.

NEW DELHI: India’s steadily rising mobile phone exports, which generated $11 billion in revenue in the first six months of the current fiscal, are expected to take a multi-billion-dollar hit as a result of a prolonged impact of the Iran war on consumption, imports and freight transit in the Gulf region.Executives, analysts and brokerage firms estimate a loss of $2 billion-3 billion on India’s electronics exports, largely because electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies export a sizeable quantity of mobile phones to the Gulf area—a key trade and consumption hub.Mobile phones are among the top five most-impacted commodities as a result of the Gulf nations and the West Asia region being directly affected in Israel and the US’s war on Iran, analysts Suvodeep Rakshit and Swarupjit Palit at brokerage firm Kotak Institutional Equities wrote in a note to investors on 6 March.The analysts cited India’s commerce ministry data to say that mobile phone exports to the Gulf and West Asia rose to $3.1 billion in FY25, accounting for 12% of the country’s net electronics exports. This entire chunk may be affected and EMS companies that rely significantly on mobile phone manufacturing may be substantially hit, at least in the current quarter and next.If the conflict continues, the entire $3 billion in export value may be wiped off in the next fiscal year, the Kotak analysts said.

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The 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) are expected to release a collective 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves in a bid to cool market prices. This has been billed as its largest ever oil release. It’s more than double the 182 million barrels released by the IEA in 2022 after the Ukraine war broke out, four times the world’s daily usage and about a third of its members’ total stash.

“‘It depends’ is almost always the right answer to any big question,” said Linus Torvalds, the software genius behind the Linux operating system’s kernel. As the Indian rupee continues to weaken, one of today’s big questions is this: What policy options does India have? The right answer is that it depends—on how long the war continues. More specifically, on how long the Strait of Hormuz remains shut to oil tankers.

government bond eased from Tuesday as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) purchased government securities to inject liquidity. The 10-year yield ended Thursday at 6.66%.

Strait of Hormuz, have disrupted oil supplies and pushed up crude prices—an especially sensitive issue for India, which imports roughly 80% of its fuel.The turbulence has already weighed on domestic markets. The country's benchmark indices have plunged about 4% since the beginning of the war until 11 March.

Coal India Ltd’s shares hit a new 52-week high of ₹467.90 on the NSE on Thursday, gaining over 4% when the Nifty 50 index declined 0.5%, possibly on expectations of higher prices at its e-auctions as global coal prices rise due to the West Asia conflict.The flare-up in oil and gas prices is spilling over to the international coal market, too. Higher global coal prices would hurt domestic import volumes and push CIL’s e-auction premiums and offtake higher.The state-owned company sells some of its output through e-auctions at market-determined prices, in addition to fuel supply agreements (FSA) with power producers.

markets, by their nature, eventually begin to price the world beyond the conflict.Nations often enter wars even when they can scarcely afford them. They end wars for the same reason. When the economic and political costs become unsustainable, conflicts eventually wind down.The current war in West Asia will likely follow a similar pattern.

The Nifty 50 is facing its most significant period of volatility in over a year. As of 9 March, the index has entered correction territory, down more than 10% from its January peak of 26,373.Whether the Nifty 50 recovers from here or drops further to 22,000 depends heavily on the duration of the current geopolitical crisis and the resulting oil shock.Here is a breakdown of the current investing landscape.The main driver of the market’s fall is the escalating conflict in the Middle East.Yes, if the war drags on and crude oil remains at elevated levels.

Springing a surprise, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a plan for what he called America’s first new refinery in half-a-century, backed by investment from India’s Reliance. To be built by America First Refining, it is part of a deal whose value Trump put at $300 billion, calling it the biggest in US history.“Thank you to our partners in India, and their largest privately held Energy Company, Reliance, for this tremendous Investment,” he said in a Truth Social post.

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PTI last week, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said that while the regulator has no concerns about the futures segment of the derivatives market, it remains watchful of speculative trading in short-dated options. Index options turnover has grown even as cash market activity has fallen despite the regulatory curbs.Combined average daily premium turnover (ADT) of index options such as Nifty and Sensex rose 5% even as combined cash market ADT dipped by almost 8% in the current fiscal through 9 March (FY26), from the same period a year ago.In absolute terms, index options' ADT rose to ₹67,143 crore from ₹63,828 crore in the period under review, while cash market ADT slipped to ₹1.12 trillion in the current fiscal (1 Apr 2025 -9 Mar 2026) from ₹1.22 trillion in FY25 (1 April 2024-7 Mar 2025).The rise in combined options turnover comes despite regulatory curbs such as limiting index options expiry to one per exchange from multiple earlier, and tripling contract sizes to ₹15-20 lakh from ₹5 -10 lakh, among other measures, since November 2024.The National Stock Exchange (NSE) offers weekly Nifty options every Tuesday while the BSE offers Sensex options every Thursday.Market analysts attributed the growth to volumes shifting from discontinued liquid weekly contracts on the NSE such as Bank Nifty, Midcap Nifty and Finnifty to Sensex options.Prior to November 2024, the NSE ran four liquid weeklies including Nifty while BSE's only liquid contract was the Sensex options contract.