Dalal Street shrugged off a week of jitters on Monday, staging its sharpest single-day comeback in a month as a twin tailwind — falling crude and a pause in US-Iran hostilities — lured buyers back in droves.

Indian stocks closed deep in red on Thursday, extending losses for a fifth straight session as oil’s spike above $100/barrel and fresh geopolitical flare-ups in West Asia wiped out a mid-day recovery. Benchmarks posted their worst week in four months, with investors dumping risk ahead of quarterly earnings and a potential rate hike cycle.

Indian equities extended their losing streak on July 23, 2026, driven down by rising Brent crude prices above $96 per barrel amid US-Iran tensions. With 15 of 16 sectoral indices closing in the red, heavyweights across IT, banking, and pharma led the slide while investors pivoted toward domestic-consumption stocks.

Indian equities closed sharply lower on Wednesday, with both benchmarks extending declines for the third session in a row. A spike in crude oil prices and heavy selling in PSU banks and realty stocks overshadowed pockets of strength in FMCG and autos.

Indian benchmark indices extended losses for a third straight session as weakness in banking stocks and concerns over rising crude oil prices, Red Sea tensions and global trade developments weighed on investor sentiment, even as IT shares and broader markets showed resilience.

Indian equity benchmarks wrapped up a highly indecisive trading session on Thursday, July 16, 2026, as a steep, earnings-induced crash across insurance heavyweights completely erased an early IT-led opening breakout. The BSE Sensex finished effectively unchanged, gaining a microscopic 1.44 points to settle at 77,186.87, while the NSE Nifty 50 marginally shed 5.75 points to close the gate at 24,072.75. Intraday trading desks absorbed early tailwinds from HSBC upgrading India to ‘Neutral’ and hiking its year-end Sensex target to 84,000 on the back of resilient $1.6 billion July foreign fund inflows. However, the initial momentum—which saw Nifty scale an intraday high of 24,186—was entirely compromised after ICICI Lombard plunged 10.5% to a two-year low on a severely downcast earnings commentary, pulling down the broader banking and financial index by 0.5%. Defending the floor, defensive IT counters showed signs of stabilization with Wipro advancing 1.8% ahead of its Q1 cards, further supported by structural cheer as India-UK Free Trade Agreement corridors saw their inaugural duty-free jewelry dispatches leave local shores. Yet, aggregate trading volumes remained intensely restricted as Brent crude trended precariously around $85 a barrel, keeping retail risk appetite strictly range-bound as the U.S. Navy maintains an active defensive blockade against Iranian maritime movements in the Strait of Hormuz.