Kolkata: The Indian stock markets opened in the red on Tuesday morning. At 9:20 AM, Sensex stood at 77,248.64, down 0.47% or 367.76 points, while Nifty 50 stood at 24,121.35 points, down 0.37% or 89.65. The headwinds were strong this morning. Benchmark crude oil prices jumped about 2% in Asian trade to reach their highest level in a month as the conflict escalated in West Asia. Brent ‌crude futures rose to reach $84.98 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude touched $79.79 a barrel. On Monday, Brent crude surged 9.6%, which marked the biggest single-day rally since May 2020. The fall of the rupee continued against the US dollar.

Among the prominent gainers this morning were TCS (+1.58%), BHARTIARTL (+1.18%), TECHM (+0.72%), ADANIPORTS (+0.67%) and TATASTEEL (+0.61%). On the other hand, the prominent laggards were M&M (-1.65%), ULTRACEMCO (-1.67%), HCLTECH (-1.81%), BAJFINANCE (-1.91%) and INDIGO (-2.21%).

The fall of the Indian rupee continued against the US dollar. Thanks to a stronger dollar and the rapid rise of the crude oil prices over the past three days, the rupee has come under increasing pressure against the greenback.

“There are some headwinds blowing again which might impact the Indian market in the near-term. The escalation of US-Iran conflict has pushed Brent crude to USD 84. If this spike continues it will again start impacting India’s macros,” VK Vijayakumar, chief isvestment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited, was quoted by PTI as saying.

The retail inflation figure in June was also not something to cheer about. It stood at 4.38% which marked its rise above the RBI target of 4% for the first time in the past 17 months. The inflation was substantially triggered by higher fuel and food costs amid the crude oil supply disruptions and El Nino impact.

At 9:15 am, the major Asian indices were all in red with one exception. The ones in the red were GIFT NIFTY, Nikkei 225, Straits Times, Hang Seng, Taiwan Weighted, KOSPI and Shanghai Composite. Only Jakarta Composite was in the green.

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Avijit Ghosal has been writing on topics of business, industry and investment for the past three decades. He also writes on the broad economy, infrastructure and issues in banking. He has worked for economic dailies such as the Business Standard, The Economic Times, business magazines such as Business Today, English broadsheet the Hindustan Times and Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika before joining TV9 Network.