Mumbai, May 8, 2026, 16:33 IST
Friday brought a second day of losses for Indian equities. The Sensex shed 516.33 points, while the Nifty 50 slipped under the 24,200 mark. Fresh U.S.-Iran clashes pushed crude prices higher, erasing much of the earlier relief rally this week.
BSE Sensex slipped 0.66% to finish at 77,328.19. The NSE Nifty 50 ended the day off 150.50 points, or 0.62%, settling at 24,176.15. According to NSE data, Nifty was at that exact mark when the clock hit 15:30.
The selloff hits hard now—investors had just spent most of the week betting the West Asia conflict might cool. That outlook unraveled after the U.S. and Iran traded fire close to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for oil shipments. Still, both sides continued to downplay any real risk of the ceasefire collapsing.
Brent crude climbed past $100 a barrel, according to Reuters. For Indian stocks, pricey oil does more than grab attention—it pushes up import bills, drags on the rupee, and chips away at corporate margins.
“Sentiment is completely hostage to the Iran war,” said Raghvendra Nath, managing director at Ladderup Asset Managers, speaking to Reuters. He pointed out that higher crude prices are piling on pressure for both macroeconomic conditions and company earnings, despite March-quarter results offering the market some support up to this point. Reuters
State Bank of India weighed heavily after missing profit forecasts for the fourth quarter. The country’s top lender posted a standalone net profit of 196.84 billion rupees, up from 186.43 billion rupees last year, but still short of the 203.12 billion rupees analysts were looking for as treasury income slipped, according to Reuters.
SBI shares slumped up to 7.43% post-earnings, according to Reuters. Net interest income, the bank’s key lending metric, edged up 4.1%. Still, margins tightened, and treasury income slid compared to last year.
Stocks leaned lower by the close, just not dramatically. According to Moneycontrol, advancers came in at 1,988, lagging behind 2,048 stocks that fell. Nifty Midcap gave up 0.15%, while smallcaps posted a 0.22% gain. Losses in PSU banks hit 3%, oil and gas slid by 1%. On the flip side, IT, healthcare, consumer durables, and FMCG shares finished up.
The rupee slipped again, finishing down 23 paise at 94.48 per dollar—worse than its 94.25 close a session earlier, Moneycontrol said. Foreign institutional investors pulled out 340.89 crore rupees from equities on Thursday, another drag on sentiment.
“The deescalation-escalation drama in West Asia continues,” V.K. Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments, told Moneycontrol, pointing to how crude prices are tracking the headlines. Indian shares look set to remain “highly sensitive to news flow,” Enrich Money CEO Ponmudi R said. Moneycontrol
Stock action wasn’t all one-way. Britannia Industries slid 4%, with brokerages pointing to sluggish sales growth despite a profit uptick in the March quarter. Dabur India, on the other hand, added 2% after its latest results topped analyst projections, according to Moneycontrol.
The Nifty climbed 0.7% for the week, while the Sensex wasn’t far behind, adding 0.5%, Reuters reported. Early gains rode on optimism over a potential U.S.-Iran peace deal and steady earnings. Autos outpaced, with the sector’s index jumping 5.2%—Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, and Hero MotoCorp all leading the charge.
The market seems to be tracking oil moves and war updates more than local earnings now. Crude staying above $100 and a sliding rupee spell more strain for banks, importers, and energy-heavy sectors. But if negotiations pick up and oil prices ease, what happened Friday could just turn out to be a brief bout of profit-taking—not the beginning of a bigger drop.
