Indian markets tumble amid escalating Middle East tensions; auto and oil stocks take a hit

Indian equity benchmarks, BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 tanked at the opening bell on Thursday on weak global cues due to rising tensions in the Middle East. 

Indian markets resumed trading after a break on account of Gandhi Jayanti on Wednesday.

Late on Tuesday, Iran fired ballistic missiles towards Israel in retaliation to the latter’s killing of a prominent Hezbollah leader last week.

This spooked financial markets with international equity benchmarks also taking a hit. 

As of 10:20 AM IST, the Sensex was at 83368.96, down 1.1%, while the Nifty 50 was at 25,536.60, also down 1.0% from Tuesday’s close. 

Shares of downstream oil marketing companies drop

Shares of downstream oil marketing companies fell at the opening on Thursday as higher crude oil weighed on sentiments. 

Higher oil prices tend to eat into profitability of downstream oil companies as they have to import crude to refine it into petroleum products. 

Shares of Bharat Petroleum Corporation tanked more than 3%, while Hindustan Petroleum Corporation was down almost 4% from the previous close.

Indian Oil Corporation’s stock fell 1.9% on Thursday. 

Oil prices have continued to rise since Tuesday as increased tensions in the Middle East put supply from the region at risk. 

Most sectoral indices see red

Nifty Bank recorded fourth consecutive sessions of losses as key banking stocks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank declined by 0.8%-1.5% on Thursday. 

Auto stocks also plunged into the red on Thursday with Tata Motors down 2.4%, while Eicher Motors declined as much as 4.6% from the previous close. 

Shares of Bajaj Auto and TVS Motors also declined by more than 2% on Thursday morning.

Most other sectoral indices were also in the red. 

Shares of Bombay Stock Exchange surge

Shares of BSE are trading 7.6% higher currently at 4,153.65 rupees.

The stock is nearing its all-time high of 4,200 rupees, having made an intraday high of 4,177 rupees on Thursday. 

Shares of BSE are rising after the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Tuesday announced six new norms for trading in index derivatives. 

Metal stocks, ONGC shares gain

Shares of JSW Steel rose 2.8%, while those of Tata Steel gained by 1.2% on Thursday from their previous close. 

Hindustan Zinc, Jindal Steel and Vedanta were among the other metal stocks in the Nifty Metal index to gain on Thursday.

At the time of writing, Nifty Metal was up 0.3% from the previous close. 

Shares of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation also gained more than 1%. ONGC’s stock gained as higher crude oil prices increase the profitability of upstream oil exploring companies.