War Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: The West Asia war is likely to have a limited impact on India’s economy and although inflation could accelerate from the level in March, it will stay within the central bank’s tolerance range, S. Mahendra Dev, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said in an interview.The economy is likely to expand 7% this year, and the Iran war has re-emphasized the need for faster diversification of energy sources, Dev said.Atmanirbharta or self-reliance is at the centre of India’s strategy to navigate a global environment riddled with economic choke points, Dev said.Dev said the economy’s resilience in the face of headwinds generated by the West Asia war could be demonstrated by the narrowing of India’s trade deficit to $20.67 billion in March.“This shows that the impact of the war is being mitigated by a good export performance to a diversified set of markets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Indians are holding on to their smartphones for a record period of nearly four years, data from three independent market researchers showed, as exchange offers and interest-free loans fail to offset soaring prices in a challenging economy.Brands have been nudging buyers towards the premium end, where the average smartphone now costs over ₹26,000, against ₹17,000 in 2021. The devices themselves have become sturdier and offer extended software upgrades, making phone purchases more discretionary and less urgent.“Our business used to thrive on enthusiasts and high net-worth individuals, who would previously upgrade their smartphones every year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Throughout the war in Iran most investors have bet that an economic catastrophe would not take place. Oil and gas prices would need to rise to the stratosphere to destroy demand for the fuel that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. That would cause recession and high inflation.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Wall Street’s favorite new way of making money is selling sophisticated investing strategies to Main Street.JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other banks are competing to sell programs that systematically execute trades based on preset rules. Hedge funds and others have long deployed such quant-trading strategies, but now pension funds, endowments, family offices and others are embracing them.Asset managers are also seeing a surge in interest in the strategies from wealthy investors.Fueling interest in these trading products, which banks call quantitative investment strategies, or QIS: fear that traditional investment approaches can’t keep up in the age of artificial intelligence.“The speed of the market is increasing, and we don’t have conviction about managers who mainly rely on fundamental analysis,” says Elmer Huh, chief investment officer of the Murdock Trust, a foundation in the Pacific Northwest.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Companies are resorting to staggered price hikes to combat rising input cost inflation and protect margins. The impact of these increases is likely to reflect in June quarter (Q1FY27) earnings, but further hikes cannot be ruled out—especially if crude oil prices remain elevated.The West Asia war has triggered a spike in crude oil prices and LPG shortages.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Iraqi militias backed by Iran launched dozens of explosive drones at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states during more than five weeks of fighting, in what is becoming a shadowy war within a war pushing some of the world’s largest oil producers toward open conflict.According to at least one Saudi assessment described by a person familiar with it, up to half of the nearly 1,000 drone attacks on the kingdom came from inside Iraq. They included strikes on a Saudi refinery in the sensitive Yanbu oil hub on the Red Sea and oil fields in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, people familiar with the matter said.Drones launched from Iraq targeted Kuwait’s only civilian airport.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Wall Street and Washington will be watching Kevin Warsh on Tuesday for any sign he has an understanding with President Trump to cut interest rates if installed as chair of the Federal Reserve. Trump will be watching for any sign he doesn’t.The high-wire act starts before Warsh even has the job.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The sudden twists in West Asia peace talks underscore just how fluid the situation is. On Friday, Iran showed some keenness to engage with the US as it declared the Strait of Hormuz open, but only to slam it shut again the next day.Since then, Tehran has professed itself unready to hold truce talks with the US. Not only was America making excessive and shifting demands, it argued, its blockade of Iranian ports was a violation of the ceasefire due to expire only on 22 April.To make matters between the two adversaries worse, this week began with armed US action against an Iranian commercial vessel.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.THE IRAN war may end up teaching America many lessons. One that it has learned the hard way is the woeful economics of using traditional weaponry against cheap Iranian drones.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Kevin Warsh spent the past year constructing a case for the Federal Reserve to deliver the interest-rate cuts President Trump wants: An artificial-intelligence boom would soon deliver a productivity surge that would hold down prices.When Warsh appears Tuesday in front of senators for the confirmation hearing that could put him one step closer to leading the central bank, his toughest audience could be his future colleagues. They have been delicately but unmistakably signaling their pointed skepticism.If confirmed, he stands to inherit a Fed caught between a technological shift that has yet to hold prices down and a fracturing geopolitical landscape that keeps threatening to push prices up.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.On 17th April Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, declared that commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open”. Shortly afterwards Donald Trump, America’s president, echoed his words: the conduit was “completely open and ready for business”.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other energy companies are speeding up their searches for new oil-and-gas prospects—far away from the perils of the war in the Middle East.Exxon recently outlined a potential plan to pump up to $24 billion into Nigeria’s deep-water oil fields, while Chevron expanded its footprint in Venezuela. BP bought stakes in oil blocks off the coast of Namibia, and TotalEnergies signed an exploration deal with Turkey.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.WASHINGTON—The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said.U.A.E.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India's top private lenders, led by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, reported strong growth numbers in the quarter just gone by but have turned cautious on business prospects in fiscal 2027 as the West Asia war and consequent economic disruptions stoke uncertainty.While domestic demand trends have been robust so far, war-related tensions cloud visibility on future growth and lending, especially to small and medium enterprises and export-oriented companies.HDFC Bank’s loans grew 12% on year to ₹29.6 trillion as at the end of March 2026, whereas deposits were 14% higher at ₹31 trillion. On its post-earnings media call Saturday, managing director and CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan stated that it would be difficult to predict the future pace of growth given the war even though expansion is expected to continue.“The trajectory is the right path in terms of positive momentum and we shall calibrate that as we get more clarity from the macro indicators over a period of time,” Jagdishan said, adding that so far the impact from the geo-political situation has been minimal.Jagdishan said bank clients have seen a certain level of disruption but what is really encouraging is their resilience.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Indian automakers are beginning to feel the operational strain of the West Asia conflict, with companies flagging supply bottlenecks, longer shipping times and rising costs, even as domestic demand remains resilient.Early signals from industry executives suggest the impact is weighing far more on supply chains than on demand, which has so far held up. The spillover is beginning to feed into production and exports, pushing up costs that companies are gradually passing on to consumers.At the centre of the strain is the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime chokepoint that has seen vessel movement fall sharply amid repeated disruptions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Consensus earnings estimates for the fourth quarter of FY26 point to double digit growth, albeit at a lower level than the previous quarter due to the impact of the West Asia war and a high base effect, says Satish Ramanathan, chief investment officer-equity at JM Financial Asset Management Company in an interview. Leading companies may emerge better given superior pricing power.Asked whether it is time for foreign portfolio investors to return to Indian equity markets, Ramanathan reply was: “…we believe Indian equity markets are now reasonable as regards valuations and are poised to benefit from a diversified economy and domestic market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.If you want proof that multilateralism is limping and hobbling, all you have to do is look at the latest ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held last month. The talks ended without any consensus over a global trade deal, adding yet another episode to years of paused global trade agreements.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Watching TV news or listening to most consumers, you’d think the jump in oil prices since the start of the Iran war will send inflation spiraling skyward.Most economists, meanwhile, expect that the impact of higher energy costs on inflation will be relatively trivial. Some even invoke the infamous T word: “transitory.”The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, even after crude’s 10% selloff on Friday on news that Iran said it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Inflation won’t skyrocket, as it did in 2022 to a four-decade peak north of 9%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Balanced advantage funds (BAFs)—hybrid mutual funds that dynamically shift between equity and debt—adjust their allocations in response to market conditions. In theory, they increase equity exposure when valuations are low and move towards debt when equities appear stretched.A closer look at how India’s five largest BAFs have moved over the past two years, however, reveals a more nuanced picture: the broad direction is consistent, but the pace, range and conviction differ from fund to fund.Between January 2024 and March 2026, the Nifty 50 ran through a full cycle—rallying about 19% from around 21,700 to over 25,800, correcting nearly 14% through February 2025, recovering through the rest of 2025, and showing fresh weakness in early 2026 amid the West Asia war.Through this period, the five largest BAFs by assets under management (AUM)—HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund, ICICI Prudential BAF, SBI BAF, Edelweiss BAF and Kotak BAF—all adjusted equity exposure, but in different ways driven by their underlying models, ranging from valuation-based frameworks to momentum-driven approaches.That divergence matters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In previous decades, propaganda for murderous Middle Eastern regimes tended to be unpersuasive. As American forces rolled into the Iraqi capital in 2003, Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf, stood on a roof and claimed that “Baghdad is safe…the infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gate.” He added that God was “grilling their stomachs in hell”. Behind him, television audiences could see Iraqi soldiers fleeing for their lives.In today’s Gulf war, astonishingly, a murderous dictatorship appears to be winning the propaganda battle against the land of the free and the home of Hollywood.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.From India falling to the sixth rank in the IMF’s GDP rankings to retail inflation rising at a quicker pace in March amid the West Asia war, the moderation in shareholder payouts by TCS to parent Tata Sons, and commercial banks facing fewer penalties from the RBI, indicating improved compliance, here’s a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.India has slipped to the sixth rank globally in gross domestic product (GDP) rankings for 2025 (FY26) and 2026 (FY27), falling behind the UK after holding the fifth spot for three consecutive years, according to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) latest data.The pullback follows a downward revision in the country’s nominal GDP after the base year was updated from 2011-12 to 2022-23, which corrected previous overestimations, Mint reported. Additionally, a sharp depreciation in the rupee has weakened India’s standing in dollar terms.