Sebi chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey has urged investors to avoid panic as global markets reel from geopolitical tensions linked to the escalating US-Iran conflict. Speaking at an event marking 30 years of the Nifty50, Pandey said investors should remain calm despite heightened volatility caused by the war and its spillover effects on global trade and energy supplies.

“We are meeting at a time when global markets are experiencing turbulence and volatility arising from the Middle East war, choking off vital shipping lines and triggering oil and gas supply and price shocks,”” Pandey said on Sunday. “Like the rest of the globe, India too is deeply impacted by such developments. Yet, amid such uncertainties, India’s domestic fundamentals have continued to remain strong.”

Pandey’s remarks come as financial markets worldwide react to fears that a widening conflict between the US and Iran could disrupt energy flows and global supply chains, raising inflation risks and increasing uncertainty for investors.

Addressing industry leaders and market participants at the event hosted by the NSE, the Sebi chief emphasised that periods of volatility are not new to Indian markets and that long-term resilience has historically prevailed.

“It is important not to panic at this moment, but to remain calm amidst this storm,” he said, noting that the Nifty has navigated multiple episodes of global shocks and uncertainty over the past three decades while continuing to reflect the strength of India’s growth story.

The benchmark index, launched in 1996, has grown alongside India’s evolving capital market ecosystem. According to Pandey, the index has increased about 25-fold since inception, delivering a compound annual growth rate of roughly 11%.

He also highlighted the rapid expansion of India’s investor base and market depth. The country now has more than 140 million unique investors, while the market capitalisation of companies listed on NSE exceeds 130% of India’s GDP, up from about 35% in the mid-1990s. Individual investors and domestic mutual funds together hold roughly 36% of the free-float market capitalisation of Nifty 50 companies, reflecting a growing shift of household savings into equities.Pandey noted that the Nifty has evolved from being just a benchmark index into a core pillar of the capital market ecosystem. More than 40 exchange-traded funds and index funds now track the index, offering investors low-cost ways to participate in equity markets.

He also underscored the role of strong institutions and regulation in sustaining market confidence. Over the years, Sebi has strengthened governance norms for market infrastructure institutions, enhanced surveillance systems, and deployed technology-driven monitoring tools such as real-time scanners for detecting unauthorised digital activity.

As India’s economy expands into new sectors driven by technology and innovation, Pandey said the country’s markets will become larger and more complex, but also more resilient.

“Over these thirty years, the Nifty has become a mirror of corporate India and a barometer of investor sentiment,” he said, expressing confidence that it will continue to anchor India’s capital markets through future cycles of volatility.

Sen. Ron Wyden laid into Kennedy in his opening statement, saying the secretary was responsible for fueling “mistrust” in the U.S. health care system.

“Families are confused,” Wyden said. “They’re scared about who to trust about their health care. Robert Kennedy and Donald Trump have done so much to feed that mistrust.”

Wyden specifically went after Kennedy for his dismantling of the vaccine structure, claiming Kennedy’s family and allies stand to potentially make financial gains from his decisions. Wyden said it’s “been obvious from the start that Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is to take vaccines away from Americans,” Wyden said. 

“His agenda has not been about choices and information for families,” Wyden said. “Just last week, he threatened doctors that deviated from the new anti-science vaccines guidelines he released that make it harder for pregnant women and children to get the COVID vaccine.” 

“Every single day, there has been an action that endangers the health and wellness of American families,” Wyden said. “Robert Kennedy has elevated conspiracy theorists, crackpots and grifters to make life-or-death decisions about the health care of the American people.”

Wyden said he doesn’t think Kennedy “should be within a million miles of this job.”

“It is in the country’s best interest that Robert Kennedy step down, and if he doesn’t, Donald Trump should fire him before more people are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth,” Wyden said. 

Wyden asked the committee to formally swear in Kennedy as a witness “given the unprecedented nature of the witness’s behavior,” but Crapo objected, saying “we will let the secretary make his own case in his opening statement.”
“This committee’s unwillingness to swear this witness is basically a message that it is acceptable to lie to the Senate Finance Committee about hugely important questions like vaccines,” Wyden said.

Taiwan’s top financial regulator said on Saturday it would extend temporary curbs on short-selling for another week to ensure market stability after U.S. tariffs unleashed turmoil, adding that the restrictions had been helpful.

The stock market in Taiwan seesawed this week, plummeting on the tariff news before rebounding strongly after U.S. President Donald Trump put a pause on the tariffs.

In a statement, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission said the market stabilisation measures on short-selling of shares had “indeed had the expected effect of effectively curbing speculative selling”.

While investor confidence has been gradually restored, the U.S. tariff policy and responses by other countries are still highly uncertain in the short term, it added.

Global stock market fluctuations are likely to keep affecting Taiwan’s stock market, the regulator said.

Last week Taiwan also activated its $15-billion stock stabilisation fund to prop up the market. The island’s benchmark stock index has dropped 15% so far this year. Short sellers borrow shares they expect to fall, aiming to repay the loan for less later to pocket the difference.

As a global market rout wiped out $5.3 trillion in equity value from Wall Street last week following U.S. tariff threats, valuation expert Aswath Damodaran has laid out a four-part plan to navigate the crisis and has already begun revaluing his tech-heavy portfolio, starting with the “magnificent five” stocks.

“My response to this crisis (or any other) will follow this script,” the NYU Stern finance professor wrote in his latest analysis blog, detailing a personal yet methodical approach: monitor daily equity risk premiums, revalue companies, prepare to buy undervalued names, and then return to living life.

Damodaran said he will continue tracking the equity risk premium (ERP), treasury rates, and expected stock returns on a daily basis — as he did during previous crises in 2008 and 2020 — to assess how markets are recalibrating. “This process lasted for months after the 2008 and 2020 crises,” he noted, adding that his confidence will increase as earnings reports reflect the impact of proposed tariffs.

The second step is a comprehensive revaluation of his existing holdings, especially given the potential for tariffs to materially affect company fundamentals. Damodaran said he is revaluing his holdings in batches, beginning with his largest technology positions — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta — having already exited Tesla and most of Nvidia. “I plan to revalue them in batches, starting with my big tech holdings (the Mag Five…),” he wrote.

In the third step, Damodaran stressed the distinction between great companies and great investments — arguing that the best businesses aren’t always priced attractively. However, in market crises, mispricings emerge. “During a crisis, where investors often sell without discrimination, these companies can become buys,” he wrote. He has already started revaluing a watchlist of quality names with tariffs built into the models and is placing limit orders at below-intrinsic-value levels.

Among stocks nearing Damodaran’s buy thresholds: BYD, the Chinese EV maker he highlighted in a recent post on globalization, and Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce and fintech firm. “Both… have moved from being significantly overvalued to within shouting distance of the limit prices I have on them,” he said.Finally, Damodaran said he will avoid obsessively watching the markets, emphasizing that reacting to daily movements often does more harm than good. “I certainly don’t see much gain watching the market hour-to-hour and day-to-day,” he wrote. Instead, he plans to enjoy life’s small pleasures — “like a Yankee win or taking my dog for a walk” — and big ones, including celebrating his granddaughter’s upcoming birthday.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)

Asian markets plunged on Monday, deepening a global stocks rout triggered by US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei fell by more than 8% shortly after opening. The share average, which tracks 225 of the country’s most valuable companies, has fallen below the 33,000 level for the first time since August 2024, according to Reuters. The broader Topix index last traded more than 7.5% lower, recovering from its steepest losses.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday the government will continue to ask President Trump to lower tariffs against Japan, but acknowledged results “won’t come overnight,” according to Reuters.

“As such, the government must take all available means” to cushion the economic blow from US tariffs such as offering funding support for domestic firms and taking measures to protect jobs, Ishiba reportedly told parliament. On Wednesday, Trump imposed a 24% across-the-board tariff on Japan, a defense treaty ally, which is due to take effect later this week.

Asian markets are tracking the worst two-day stretch for Wall Street stocks in five years. US stock futures plunged Sunday evening after two sessions of sell-offs that wiped away over $5.4 trillion in market value.

Global investors have rejected President Trump’s massive tariff regime, some of which went into effect on Saturday morning and even larger tariffs are set to launch on Wednesday. China retaliated fiercely on Friday, imposing a 34% tariff on all US goods, raising fears of an escalating and damaging trade war.

On Sunday evening, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he didn’t intentionally crash markets but declined to predict how markets would trade in the future.

“What’s going to happen with the market? I can’t tell you,” Trump said. “But I can tell you, our country has gotten a lot stronger, and eventually it’ll be a country like no other.”

US stocks are set to open sharply lower Monday, putting the S&P 500 on the precipice of a bear market — a decline of 20% from its peak and an ominous sign for investors and perhaps the broader economy.

South Korea’s Kospi tumbled more than 4.8% shortly after opening. Trading was halted for five minutes when a circuit breaker designed to prevent panic selling was triggered.

Taiwan’s Taiex plummeted more than 9.7% after opening. Circuit breakers were activated for TSMC and Foxconn, two of the island’s best known export powerhouses, after their shares each fell by nearly 10%, according to Reuters.

In Australia, the benchmark ASX 200 index fell as much 6.3% in morning trade, while New Zealand’s NZX 50 lost more 3.5%.

Source: CNN

–Agencies

The yen’s devaluation didn’t impact crypto markets yet, but this could change if the BOJ steps in to prop up the currency, Noelle Acheson, analyst and author of the Crypto Is Macro Now reports, said in an email interview. A possible intervention would mean the BOJ selling U.S. dollar assets (U.S. Treasuries) to buy yen, and a weaker greenback could in theory help crypto prices, she added.