The government will cut petrol and diesel prices when there is a sustained drop in global crude oil prices, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Tuesday.
Projecting that global oil prices would stabilise at around $30-35 and help ease pressures on consumers, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday sought deregulation of natural gas, terming it as an alternate fuel in the medium term.
Bank shares were the top gainer in early trades with Bank of Baroda up over 4%.
US strikes on Iran's three main nuclear facilities have once again raised concerns that Tehran might shut down the Strait of Hormuz - one of the world's most critical chokepoints, through which a fifth of global oil and gas supply flows.
"We have the toughest sanctions ever imposed. But on oil, we want to go a little bit slow because I don't want to drive the oil prices in the world up," Trump told reporters.
The Indian industry wants the government adopt a multi-pronged approach to de-risk the country's oil needs by conserving energy, promoting alternative sources and building strategic reserves, a Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry su
US President Donald Trump has said that India should not be "dumping" rice into the United States market and he will "take care" of it, while stressing that tariffs will solve the "problem" easily.
'There are very few issues and a political call needs to be taken about some of them.'
Donald Trump's tariffs, meant as political punishment, have avoided the predicted chaos, lifting US growth, weakening rivals, and letting him claim victory in a resilient global economy, observes T T Ram Mohan.
Among Sensex firms, Bharat Electronics, Eternal, Mahindra & Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tata Motors and Power Grid were the gainers. However, Adani Ports, ITC, UltraTech Cement and Titan were among the laggards.
From the Sensex pack, Eternal, Bharat Electronics Ltd, Trent, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Asian Paints, Adani Ports, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Industries, ITC, PowerGrid, Tata Motors Ltd's Commercial Vehicles business, and Bajaj Finserv were the gainers. Infosys, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Tech Mahindra, Titan, UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki India, and Larsen & Toubro were the laggards.
The government will continue the policy of equitable burden sharing between the state, oil companies and consumers for absorbing the impact of the upward spiral in global oil prices.
The decision to hike US H-1B visa application fee to $100,000, trade talks and the GST rate cut will be the key drivers for stock market movement this week, analysts said.
CAD, which is the difference between outflow and inflow of foreign currency, touched a historic high of 6.7 per cent in the third quarter.
Rising geopolitical uncertainty, a falling dollar and the growing speculative interest in commodities trading will keep crude prices volatile.
India's large foreign exchange reserves can cushion a short-term jump in oil prices, but a long drawn conflict in Iraq could hurt the economy
There has been a dramatic decline in oil prices from the high of $147 a barrel in July, to less than a third of that today. However, it is too early to say if this is a fundamental change in the direction of oil prices, resulting from the announced cuts in production by the oil-exporting countries, or a blip in a falling market. The government seems to be assuming (or hoping that it is) the latter and is rushing ahead with its price cut plan.
The government should start with two assumptions: first, that oil prices are fundamentally unstable and susceptible to wide fluctuations, and second, that raising the prices of petroleum products is politically difficult.
With an eye on the adverse fallout of rising oil prices, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said the government's subsidy bill for petroleum products and fertilisers might cross the projections for 2011-12 and put fiscal consolidation plans under strain.
Stock markets will be driven by RBI's interest rate decision, tariff-related developments, global trends and trading activity of foreign investors in this holiday-shortened week, analysts said.
When oil prices are very high, cutting down the subsidy results in sharp increase in oil prices.
India, the world's third largest oil consuming and importing nation, spent 112.5 billion euro (about Rs 1.5 lakh crore) on buying crude oil from Russia since the start of the Ukraine war, a European think tank said on Thursday. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) released a report on payments to Russia for fossil fuels since February 24, 2022. "According to our estimates, since the beginning of the war, Russia earned EUR 835 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports," it said.
Economic boom in countries like India and China and unrest in other parts of the globe are some of the important factors.
According to a RBS report, 'the impact on India's current account deficit should be significant, cumulatively amounting to 1.9 per cent of GDP' provided for the full year FY14 prices for both oil and gold remain at current levels and aggregate volume gold demand remains stable.
The revised projection comes after a 17% rise in the April-June.
As far as US growth is concerned, he says that the first half of next year is expected to be better than the second half of this year.\n\n
From the Sensex pack, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, Power Grid, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Bharat Electronics and Sun Pharma were among the major gainers. In contrast, Trent, Eternal, Axis Bank and Titan were among the laggards.
Analysts expect Nifty to rise up by to 6 per cent in six months, with intermittent corrections likely due to global factors.
The domestic stock market will continue to monitor the Israel-Iran conflict and its impact on global supplies besides prices of crude oil this week, analysts said. Global trends and trading activity of foreign investors would also drive investors' sentiment during the week.
The rupee continued to face pressure in the first half of the current financial year (FY26), hitting fresh lows against the dollar, due to strengthening of the greenback, rising crude oil prices, and foreign outflows. Rupee has depreciated by 3.7 per cent so far in the current financial year after starting at a good note in April.
'The frenzy for gold is primarily due to the uncertainty surrounding the tariff war.'
The threat of war in Iraq and fear of terrorism in the United States and Britain pushed oil prices to near two-year highs on Thursday, drove investors into the safety of bonds but battered stocks and the dollar.
Expressing concern over the impact of rising crude oil prices on Indian economy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said it can have adverse consequences for the economy. "We cannot allow the subsidy bill to rise any further," Singh said and appealed to all the political parties to adopt a wider consensus on the pricing issue.
Financials were the top losers while oil shares also declined amid weak crude oil prices.
Oil prices fell from their two-year highs on Tuesday, as pressure mounted against an immediate attack on Iraq, lessening fears of a possible disruption of oil supplies from the world's eighth-largest exporter.
One of the reasons is that the retail prices are not bench-marked to crude but their respective international benchmark prices.