A column by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar argues that US President Donald Trump's midterm setback could bring India three gains: foreign institutional buying, cheaper crude and a stronger rupee.
The hard market facts in the column are striking. Foreign institutional investors bought about Rs 15,000 crore of Indian shares on Thursday, their biggest single-day buying in over a year, after months of selling. The Nifty jumped 2.4 percent to 24,536.60. In the first half of October, FIIs had pulled about 5 billion dollars out of Indian markets.
Brent crude was 115 dollars a barrel on 28 October and has since fallen below 100 dollars. US crude is about 91 dollars a barrel.
On Friday, the seven biggest tech companies, including Apple and Tesla, lost about Rs 1 lakh crore, or 1 trillion dollars, in market value as AI valuations fell.
The columnist's argument
The columnist argues that three pressures on India, AI investment bypassing India, expensive crude and a weak rupee, could reverse after the midterm setback. Democrats taking control of the US Congress in January may tighten AI rules and restrict power-hungry data centres, which could push data-centre work and investment towards India, already a big data-centre investment destination.
Cheaper crude, in his argument, would cut India's import bill, current account deficit and inflation, help company profits, exports and consumer spending, and give the Reserve Bank of India room to cut interest rates. Cheaper oil could also cool US inflation, letting the US Federal Reserve delay rate hikes or consider cuts, which could bring foreign money back to India and support the rupee.
The cautions
The column itself carries cautions. Geojit Investments' Vinod Nair warned the rally will last only if hopes of the war ending turn into real results. The columnist notes that Democrats alone cannot end a war by passing resolutions, that Trump may harden his stand on Iran instead, that AI curbs could also hurt Indian tech services exports, and that cheaper oil alone does not guarantee a Federal Reserve rate cut.
On the political angle, the columnist's view is that better economic conditions could help the BJP in the 2027 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur.
The column's unsourced assertions about the causes of the US entry into the Iran war and about US aid to Israel have been left out of this story, since they were not supported by sourcing in the text.
