Evening digest: India-US deal, Nvidia's OpenAI decision, Bitcoin at 10-month low

Markets didn’t just wobble today, they re-priced reality.

From a surprise India-US trade reset to Nvidia quietly stepping back from its most hyped AI bet, and from a Fed shockwave flattening commodities to crypto’s sharp liquidity unwind, this session was about power, policy, and positioning.

Big promises got renegotiated, leverage met gravity, and the dollar reminded everyone who’s still in charge.

Here’s your evening digest of a very loud market day.

India-US trade deal

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he has sealed a landmark trade deal with India, slashing US tariffs from a punitive 25% to 18%, effective immediately.

The concession: Modi pledges to stop buying roughly 1.5 million barrels daily of Russian crude, replacing it with US and Venezuelan oil, a geopolitical pivot tangled with Ukraine strategy.

The real kicker is Modi's $500 billion "Buy American" commitment for energy, tech, agricultural, and coal products over an unspecified period.

India zeros out tariff barriers against US goods in exchange. For Modi, this salvages Indian export competitiveness after Trump's August 25% punitive tariff devastated Indian shipments.

For Trump, it decouples India from Moscow's war economy, a symbolic victory in his Ukraine peace theatre.

Nvidia walks back on OpenAI investment

Jensen Huang hit the kill switch Monday on Nvidia's September blockbuster.

The chip giant's proposed $100 billion investment in OpenAI, announced with champagne fanfare five months ago, was "never a commitment," Huang clarified in Taipei, adding the outfit will invest "one step at a time."

It simply means: don't expect the nine-figure check.

Nvidia stock fell as fear spread about circular AI spending. The reality is that internal friction over OpenAI's business discipline and competition from Google/Anthropic spooked Nvidia's brass, per WSJ sources.

Huang's maneuvering, insisting OpenAI's infrastructure is "their problem," not Nvidia's, signals a strategic retreat wrapped in diplomatic language.

But he still pledged a "huge" investment (largest ever, he claims), just not $100 billion.

The uncomfortable detail: OpenAI buys Nvidia chips while Nvidia invests in OpenAI, creating exactly the circular demand-generation analysts warned about.

Kevin Warsh Fed pick triggers $2T commodity bloodbath

Gold crashed 9% Friday, the worst day since 1983, then fell another 5% Monday, silver plunged 27% (record loss), and oil cratered nearly 5.5%, sparking a global contagion as investors panic-dumped risk assets.

The culprit: Trump's Friday announcement that Fed hawk Kevin Warsh replaces dovish Powell in May, igniting a dollar rally that makes commodities pricier for overseas buyers.

Copper sank 5%, iron ore faced headwinds from China's Lunar New Year holiday beginning February 15, and wheat/soybeans each fell 1%. The MSCI All-World index dropped 1.5% since January 27's record.

CME margin hikes accelerated the deleveraging death spiral.

Bitcoin crashes to 10-month low

Bitcoin collapsed below $77,000 Monday, hitting its lowest level since April as $111 billion vaporized from crypto's total market cap in 24 hours.

The trigger: Kevin Warsh's Fed nomination Friday sent shockwaves through the space, his hawkish track record on inflation and QE-skepticism torpedoed trades betting on currency debasement and loose liquidity.

Heavy leveraged position unwinding ($1.6 billion liquidated) created a vicious feedback loop: falling prices forced margin calls, which triggered stop-loss cascades, which cratered prices further.

Weekend thin liquidity amplified the rout across major tokens. Ethereum sank 6.6% to seven-month lows at $2,290.92, while XRP, Solana, Cardano, and Polygon extended declines.

The brutal math: Bitcoin erased nearly all of 2025's institutional adoption-fueled gains, now sitting just 10% above 15-month lows near $70,000.