Oil prices continued to climb on Monday, gaining nearly 2% after U.S.-Iran peace talks lost momentum and shipments through the Strait of Hormuz remained constrained, keeping concerns over tight global supply in focus.

Expectations of renewed diplomatic progress weakened over the weekend after U.S. President Donald Trump cancelled a planned Islamabad visit by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. This came even as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in Pakistan.

Crude oil price on April 27

Brent crude futures rose $2.16, or 2.05%, to $107.49 a barrel by 2346 GMT, touching their highest level since April 7. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude advanced $1.77, or 1.88%, to $96.17 a barrel.Last week, Brent posted a nearly 17% rise, while WTI gained close to 13%, marking their biggest weekly advances since the war began.

Iran has continued to demand that vessels seek its approval before transiting the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump said the U.S. has “total control” over the waterway. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has maintained a blockade aimed at Iranian ports and vessels.
Goldman Sachs raised its fourth-quarter oil price forecasts to $90 a barrel for Brent crude and $83 for WTI, citing reduced Middle East output.
“The economic risks are larger than our crude base case alone suggests because of the net upside risks to oil prices, unusually high refined product prices, products shortages risks, and the unprecedented scale of the shock,” Reuters reported, citing Goldman Sachs analysts.
According to a Haitong Futures note cited by Reuters, the current ceasefire phase increasingly looks like a build-up to further conflict. It added that if U.S.-Iran talks fail to deliver meaningful progress by the end of April and hostilities resume, oil prices could move to fresh highs for the year.

Macquarie estimates crude prices may stay supported in the $85 to $90 range in the near term, with a gradual rise toward $110 as supply conditions improve. It also warned that prolonged disruptions through April could send Brent as high as $150 per barrel.

Nuvama Institutional Equities said an extended closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles around 20 million barrels per day, could push crude prices into the $110 to $150 range.

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

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Thailand has a strong petrochemical industry supporting manufacturing but relies heavily on chemical imports. Key suppliers like Chandra Asri Group and Aster provide essential chemicals for various sectors.

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Key Points

• Thailand is a key player in Southeast Asia’s chemical industry, boasting the region’s second-largest petrochemical sector. Despite producing 32 million tons of chemicals annually, Thailand’s reliance on imports necessitates strong local suppliers to meet domestic needs. The industry supports various sectors, including textiles, automotive, and electronics.
• In 2024, Thailand exported $14.3 billion in chemicals, ranking 31st globally, yet imports exceeded exports. The chemical import market grew by 34.15% year-on-year. The first quarter of 2025 saw a 7.23% increase in imports, emphasizing the essential role of local suppliers in providing high-quality feedstocks.
• Chandra Asri Group and Aster are notable chemical suppliers, offering a range of products like olefins, polyolefins, and styrene monomer. Their expertise supports industries such as automotive and packaging, positioning them as leading partners for Thailand’s growing chemical market.

Economic Position and Chemical Industry Overview

Thailand holds a significant economic position in Southeast Asia, boasting the second-largest petrochemical industry in the region, which plays a vital role in supporting domestic manufacturing. Despite this impressive ranking, the country remains dependent on chemical imports to meet its demand. With an annual production of 32 million tons of chemicals, Thailand supplies various downstream products to sectors such as textiles, packaging, electronics, and automotive. Reports from the Office of Industrial Economics indicate a 4.60% growth in the chemical shipment index in early 2025, bolstered by hydrogen and nitrogen gases, although manufacturing production experienced a decline of 3.86%.

Role of Chemical Suppliers

The role of reliable chemical suppliers is crucial to sustain Thailand’s industrial growth. Notably, Chandra Asri Group and Aster serve as prominent players in this sector, providing high-quality chemicals essential for various industries. Their offerings include a range of olefins, polyolefins, styrene monomers, and butadiene, which are vital for producing high-value products such as automotive components and packaging materials. The partnership between Chandra Asri Group and Aster showcases a commitment to meeting the growing chemical demand in Thailand, thereby reinforcing the country’s industrial framework.

Import-Export Dynamics

Despite its strong production capabilities, Thailand’s chemical imports outpace its exports. In 2024, Thailand exported $14.3 billion worth of chemical products, while imports grew by 34.15%, reaching $4.4 billion in early 2025. This trend highlights the increasing reliance on foreign suppliers to fulfill rising domestic needs. As the market expands, the relationship between local suppliers like Chandra Asri Group and Aster and various industries becomes even more essential for ensuring a seamless supply of high-quality feedstocks. Collaborating with established suppliers can help domestic companies efficiently navigate the complex landscape of Thailand’s chemical market, optimizing their production capabilities.

Source : Overview of Chemical Industry and Supplier in Thailand

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IDFC First Bank does not plan to raise deposit rates in the near term after meaningfully cutting them across all buckets last quarter, MD and CEO V Vaidyanathan said in an interview with Saloni Shukla. He added that stress in the microfinance book is now under control, with the bank having put in place several guardrails around the number of loans a borrower can hold concurrently.

Could you share the reasons for the tepid PAT growth?

The representative core profit for this quarter is ₹746 crore, which is 145% over the corresponding period of last year. But we took the impact of the fraud at our Chandigarh branch this quarter itself. There were certain one-time income tax refunds, so we reduced them from normal profits. Our provisions came down because the JLG or MFI portfolio collections normalised to pre-crisis levels of over 99.5%.

Has the Chandigarh episode been fully accounted for?
Yes, fully accounted for. The recovery process is on. Investigations and court processes are involved. We are working on it.

Do you believe the current level of NIM is sustainable? What would be your target range for FY27?

Our net interest margin was about 10 bps lower than shown due to fewer days in Q4FY26, so it is 5.83 bps only and not 5.93 bps. In FY27, we expect our NIM to be stable around the FY17 level of about 5.75%. We are also moving toward low-yield, low-credit-cost segments as a bank.
Loan growth has been strong. What will be the key growth drivers?
In the last year, our growth mainly came from mortgage loans, vehicle loans, consumer loans, wholesale loans and business banking. Together, these segments contributed 87% of the incremental growth last year. Going forward, we will also need to grow our rural banking business because we are short of priority sector loans. Because we are an infrastructure wholesale DFI bank, we have been short on many subcategories of priority sector loans since our origin. So, we need to grow the rural and PSL book. Also, we are a relatively small player in the Indian system, we can grow 19-20%, but we don’t want to play pre-determined shots.Deposit growth has also been robust. What will be your strategy to sustain this momentum?
For us, we build ourselves as an institution that lives into eternity. Secondly, we tell our employees that every product we make we design ethics into the product construct. We also focus on use of tech. Over time, people will hopefully experience these things with our bank, and this may help. Also, we are trying to make a good app with in-house skills. We will go more app than the branch route, branches are not the future.

Given the competition for deposits in the system, do you anticipate raising rates?
We just reduced rates meaningfully across all buckets last quarter, so we don’t intend to increase them anytime soon, except for some marginal tinkering if required.

Earnings from India’s bellwether software services exporters have reinforced investor concerns about the sector’s growth prospects, signaling that the downturn in their stocks has further to run.

Infosys Ltd., the second-largest outsourcer, forecast annual sales growth below analysts’ estimates on Thursday, following a profit miss at smaller rival HCL Technologies Ltd. two days earlier. Both stocks declined, with the latter hit by at least half a dozen analyst downgrades. A gauge of the sector plunged more than 5% on Friday to close at its lowest level since June 2023.

The market reaction underscores the two-pronged challenge being faced by India’s $315 billion tech industry — a weak global macroeconomic environment amid the Iran war that has weighed on discretionary tech spending, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, which is threatening to disrupt their business models.

The selloff in stocks has deepened since Tata Consultancy Services kicked off earnings on April 9, with nearly $115 billion now wiped off the value of the IT gauge over four months. That has also acted as a key drag on India’s broader market given that tech shares carry a weightage of about 10% in the benchmark NSE Nifty 50 Index.

“We continue to be cautious on the sector,” Surendra Goyal, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note, citing high competitive intensity and continued impact of AI on existing business.

Given the fears of AI-driven disruption, a crucial metric for investors is how effectively India’s IT outsourcers adapt — both in how quickly they embed AI into their own delivery models and how successfully they reposition themselves in the value chain.
Infosys has sought to capitalize on the rapid progress of AI by embedding the technology into its offerings in a bid to curb costs and convince corporations to maintain or enhance their IT budgets. Larger rival TCS has partnered with OpenAI to build AI data centers in India, and now its nearing more such deals with other tech giants.The companies rose to prominence in the late 1990s by helping Western firms solve the Y2K bug, which had threatened computer chaos at the turn of the millennium. Since then, they have survived fluctuations in global growth from a series of crises, as well as the dawns of new technologies from mobile telecommunications to cloud computing.

For some market watchers, the monthslong selloff has made valuations attractive. The IT gauge is trading at less than 17 times its one-year forward earnings, down from 30 at the start of last year. The benchmark Nifty 50 trades at more than 18 times.

“This is a sector with no price froth, little valuation excess, and a weak business cycle already reflected in prices,” said Sahil Kapoor, a strategist at DSP Mutual Fund. “At current prices, terminal-value risk appears limited, and we remain overweight.”

Still, the decline in share prices following the latest earnings shows investors want to see more concrete results before turning positive. The NSE Nifty IT Index is now down almost 25% in 2026, making it the worst-performing sector gauge in India. It is trailing the Nifty 50 for a second year.

“Discretionary and non-AI technology spending is under pressure, as clients are delaying large, multi-year projects due to economic uncertainty and unclear returns from AI,” said Anurag Rana, senior technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Companies lack visibility beyond a single quarter, with CFOs unable to provide clear medium-term guidance amid ongoing uncertainty.”

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