India's Nifty 50 falls for fifth session on Mideast worries

Indian shares experienced a fifth consecutive session of declines on Monday due to ongoing concerns surrounding the Iran war, which has led to elevated crude oil prices. The Nifty 50 index fell 0.32% to 24,287.65, while the BSE Sensex dropped 0.36% to 77,728.16. This marks one of the rare occasions when the benchmark indexes closed lower after the regular trading session concluded at 3:15 p.m. IST.

The Nifty 50 has now lost value for five consecutive sessions, with the 30-stock Sensex falling in four of the past five trading days.

U.S. President Donald Trump urged Americans to brace themselves for continued high fuel prices due to the ongoing war. Brent crude futures surged nearly 1% to $89 per barrel. Out of the 16 major sectors, nine experienced declines during the trading day. Despite the broader market underperforming, small-cap and mid-cap stocks showed a slight uptick, with gains of 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively.

The conclusion of the fourth quarter fiscal year 2027 corporate earnings season saw widespread outperformance across all key aggregates, according to analysts at Motilal Oswal. However, stocks trading on the BSE suffered a significant drop of 3.3% after Jefferies downgraded the exchange to "underperform" from "hold," citing risks to proprietary trading volumes.

Edtech platform PhysicsWallah rebounded by 2.4% following its announcement of a narrower loss for the first quarter after market hours on Friday. Health-tech company Rubicon Research and ice cream company Kwality Wall's jumped 11.1% and 7.8%, respectively, while fintech solutions company Zaggle Prepaid and Schneider Electric Infrastructure saw sharp declines of 20% and 11.5%, respectively.