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Informist, Tuesday, May 19, 2026                                      Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

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Equity Alert: Indices in Asia mixed as Trump calls off new attack on Iran 

 

MUMBAI--0816 IST--Stock indices in Asia were mixed Tuesday morning after US President Donald Trump called off his plan to attack Iran. The July contract of Brent crude oil slipped lower and hovered below $110 per barrel. However, Trump threatened severe attacks on the West Asian nation if an acceptable peace deal is not agreed upon.

 

"I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, The Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Daniel Caine, and The United States Military, that we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment's notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

 

South Korea's benchmark KOSPI declined over 4% in early trade and the index saw more selling pressure compared to its peer indices in Asia. Shares of heavyweight stock Samsung Electronics Co. were down more than 4% and those of SK Hynix fell almost 5%. LG Energy Solution was also down almost 4%. 

 

Meanwhile, Japan's GDP expanded at a better-than-expected 2.1% in the March quarter on an annualised basis. Reuters had forecast the country's economy to grow 1.7%. Better consumption and higher exports drove the growth in GDP.

 

"The economy may contract in the second quarter but if it's just about prices rising overall, it can probably resume a recovery thereafter. If there's huge supply disruptions, the damage to growth could be so severe the BOJ may not have scope to raise interest rates in June," Yoshiki Shinke, senior executive economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, told Reuters. 

 

The following were the levels of major Asian indices at 0816 IST:

 

Index	Level	Change in %
CSI 300 Index	4793.4119	(-)0.83
Hang Seng Index	25800.52	0.49
Nikkei 225 Day	60457.35	(-)0.59
TOPIX FIRST SECTION	3840.70	0.37
KOSPI	7206.83	(-)4.11
FTSE Singapore Strait Times	5026.95	0.60
S&P/ASX 200 Index	8583.30	0.92

 

(Ruchira Kagita)

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Equity Alert: US indices end mixed as concerns of economic instability rise

 

MUMBAI--0740 IST--Wall Street ended mixed Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average managing to advance but the NASDAQ Composite and the S&P 500 closing lower for the second consecutive session. With bond yields rising, concerns about high borrowing costs and a stick inflationary situation due to the prolonged war in West Asia mounted. 

 

"There's concern about the rally we've had in a short period of time, and there's some profit-taking," Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, told Reuters.

 

Technlogy stocks, however, led to losses in the NASDAQ on Monday. Shares of Micron Technology fell almost 6%, those of SanDisk Corp. over 5%, those of Oracle Corp. more than 3%, and those of Nvidia Corp. and Broadcom around 1?ch. Only four of the 11 S&P 500 sectoral indices ended in the red, and the S&P 500 Information Technology showed the weakest performance compared to its peer indices. The index fell nearly 1%.

"From a positioning standpoint and how stretched things have gotten, probably means that you don't see as sharp of the rallies that we were seeing certainly off the throes of the low in March," Kevin Gordon, head of macro research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, told CNBC. 

 

Following were the closing levels of major US indices on Monday:

 

US Indices	Levels	Change in %
Dow Jones Industrial Average	49686.12	0.32
NASDAQ Composite	26090.734	(-)0.51
S&P 500	7403.05	(-)0.07

 

(Ruchira Kagita)

 

US$1 = INR 96.35

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

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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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