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Informist, Friday, Apr. 24, 2026                                      Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

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Equity Alert: US indices fall Thursday; fears around peace in West Asia weigh

 

MUMBAI--0740 IST--US indices ended lower Thursday even as concerns about a positive outcome from likely peace talks between the US and Iran, and Israel and Lebanon continued to dampen sentiment. US President Donald Trump said Israel and Lebanon would extend their ceasefire for another three weeks, but this announcement failed to enthuse market participants. Fears surrounding the military impasse in the Strait of Hormuz continued to cast a shadow.

 

"I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz," Trump said in a post on social media. Brent crude oil futures remained high above $100 per barrel.

 

On Wall Street, some stocks were in focus because of earnings for the quarter ended March. Lockheed Martin fell almost 5?ter the company's revenue missed analysts' expectations to be flat on year at $18.0 billion. The defence giant's net earnings declined to $1.5 billion from $1.71 billion a year ago. Shares of Tesla fell nearly 4?ter the company's revenue for the March quarter missed the consensus forecast. The revenue came in at $22.39 billion, lower than the anticipated $22.64 billion, CNBC reported. 

 

In other news, the S&P Global US Flash Purchasing Managers' Index showed business activity in the US rebounded in April, but only slightly. The composite output rose to a three-month high of 52.0 in April from 50.3 in March. The growth in manufacturing was better than in services. The rate of expansion in services was the second-weakest in the past year as demand cooled, the report said. "There was better news from manufacturing, but here an expansion of output and orders could be partly traced to the building of safety stocks," Chris Williamson, the chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in the report.

 

Further, the number of people filing for fresh unemployment claims rose 6,000 to 214,000 in the week ended Apr. 18. The Wall Street Journal was expecting this figure to be at 210,000, but the data is not alarming.

 

Following are the closing levels of US indices on Thursday:

 

US Indices	Levels	Change in %
Dow Jones Industrial Average	49310.32	(-)0.36
NASDAQ Composite	24438.504	(-)0.89
S&P 500	7108.40	(-)0.41

 

(Ruchira Kagita)

 

US$1 = INR 94.10

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Ashish Shirke

 

All prices from National Stock Exchange, unless otherwise specified.

All percentage changes for share prices are rounded off to the nearest whole number; percentage changes for index values are rounded off to one decimal place.

All times are Indian Standard Time.

 

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