SYDNEY, Australia — The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 97.80 points, or 1.13%, to close at 8,574.00 on Thursday, April 2, 2026, extending recent weakness as persistent geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, elevated oil prices and concerns over sticky inflation continued to weigh on investor sentiment.

The benchmark Australian share index opened near 8,671.80 and traded in a wide range, hitting an intraday high of 8,723.30 before sliding to a low around 8,570.20 in afternoon trade. The decline came amid broad-based selling, with financials, technology and materials sectors leading losses despite some resilience in energy names.

This latest drop adds to a challenging start to April following a difficult March, when the ASX 200 lost approximately 7.5% — its worst monthly performance since June 2022. The index now sits roughly 8% below its all-time high near 9,202 set in late February 2026, reflecting the cumulative impact of global risk aversion.

Rising oil prices remained a dominant theme. Brent crude has stayed elevated due to ongoing conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, with concerns over potential supply disruptions through key routes like the Strait of Hormuz. Higher energy costs are feeding into inflation worries, complicating the outlook for the Reserve Bank of Australia and pressuring growth-sensitive sectors.

“Geopolitical risk and its direct translation into higher fuel costs are forcing investors to reassess domestic growth prospects,” said one Sydney-based fund manager. “When oil remains above $110–$118 per barrel, it adds meaningful upward pressure on headline inflation, limiting the scope for near-term rate relief.”

Financial stocks, which carry heavy weighting in the index, faced notable selling. The major banks — Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and ANZ — traded lower as traders weighed the implications of potentially higher-for-longer interest rates. Elevated borrowing costs could dampen consumer spending and housing activity, key drivers for the Australian economy.

Materials and mining stocks showed mixed performance. While some energy-related names gained on higher crude prices, iron ore and base metal plays retreated amid softer Chinese demand signals and broader risk-off flows. Gold miners provided limited haven support but could not offset sector-wide weakness.

Technology stocks extended recent softness, with investors rotating away from high-valuation growth names amid global concerns over artificial intelligence adoption timelines and stretched valuations. Consumer discretionary shares also came under pressure as higher fuel and living costs squeezed household budgets.

The session occurred against a backdrop of mixed domestic economic signals. Recent labour data has been uneven, while inflation readings have remained above the RBA’s 2-3% target band. Markets are pricing in a high probability of cautious monetary policy, with some analysts even flagging the risk of further rate hikes if oil-driven inflation persists.

The Australian dollar traded modestly softer against the U.S. dollar, reflecting reduced risk appetite, while bond yields showed little directional conviction as investors balanced inflation fears with safe-haven flows.

Market breadth was negative, with decliners comfortably outnumbering advancers across the broader ASX. Trading volume was solid, indicating active participation from institutional investors adjusting positions early in the new quarter.

Analysts noted that while Australia’s underlying economic fundamentals — supported by resource exports and a still-resilient labour market — provide some buffer, external factors continue to dominate near-term sentiment. The OECD has warned that Australia could face among the higher inflation rates in advanced economies if energy prices remain elevated.

Smaller companies in the ASX 300 largely mirrored the benchmark’s weakness, though some defensive and value-oriented names held up better. The All Ordinaries index also closed lower in line with the S&P/ASX 200.

Looking ahead, investors will closely monitor upcoming domestic data releases, including any updates on inflation, retail sales and trade balances. The RBA’s next policy meeting remains a focal point, with decisions likely influenced by the trajectory of global oil prices and geopolitical developments.

International cues will continue to play a critical role. Overnight movements on Wall Street, shifts in commodity prices and any fresh news from the Middle East are expected to set the tone for Friday’s trading. Asian markets, particularly China’s performance, will also be watched for demand signals affecting Australian resource companies.

Despite the day’s decline, some strategists see selective opportunities in quality companies with strong balance sheets and exposure to essential commodities. Dividend yields in the Australian market remain relatively attractive compared with many global peers, providing some support for income-focused investors.

For retail investors, the current environment underscores the importance of diversification and maintaining a long-term perspective amid short-term volatility. Financial advisers recommend focusing on businesses with pricing power and resilience to higher input costs rather than chasing momentum plays.

The S&P/ASX 200’s close at 8,574.00 leaves it testing recent support levels. Whether this represents another leg in the broader correction or a pause ahead of potential stabilisation will depend heavily on de-escalation signals from the Middle East, cooling energy prices and clearer domestic economic data.

Futures trading pointed to continued caution heading into Friday’s session. Market participants will balance ongoing external pressures against Australia’s role as a major supplier of critical resources and its relatively stable underlying growth drivers.

In summary, Thursday’s 1.13% decline in the S&P/ASX 200 highlights the persistent influence of global oil volatility and geopolitical uncertainty on Australian equities. While energy and select defensives offered pockets of relative strength, broader caution prevailed as investors navigated inflation risks and a more uncertain growth outlook.

Mumbai: India’s equity indices rebounded on Wednesday, tracking the overnight rise on Wall Street, as hopes of a resolution of the West Asia conflict sparked a decline in oil prices.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signalled willingness to end its war with the US and Israel, while US President Donald Trump said hostilities would be over in a few weeks, sending Brent crude tumbling below $100 a barrel briefly and triggering an equity rally. Still, optimism remains fragile with investors wary of being caught off guard after being wrongfooted by shifting signals from political leaders.

The NSE Nifty climbed 1.6% or 348 points to 22,679.40. The BSE Sensex finished at 73,134.32, up 1.7% or 1,186.77 points. Both indices jumped as much as 2.8% during the day but erased some of their gains at close. Brent crude was at $102.70, down 1.2% at press time, off the day’s low of $98.35.

“The market bounce was because Iran said it was willing to stop the war, provided the US gives assurance against future attacks,” said Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental research, SBI Securities. However, he said, differing reports by end of the day “led to Nifty paring some of its gains.”

Breather, Not Reversal

US markets rallied 2-4% overnight on investor hope the war will come to an end sooner rather than later after Pezeshkian said Iran is open to stopping the war, albeit with guarantees.
Asian markets rose Wednesday. South Korea surged 8.4% while Japan and Taiwan gained 5.2% and 4.6%, respectively. Hong Kong rose 2% and China advanced 1.5%.
To be sure, Trump’s subsequent social media comments complicated the message, ahead of a TV address he’s scheduled to deliver at 6:30 am India time on Thursday.
The Volatility Index (VIX) dropped 10.3% to 25 as traders tempered near-term risk expectations.

“The softening risk implies some ease in the overall bearish sentiment as markets were also extremely oversold, but investors should not read much into it as it’s expected to be a breather and not a trend reversal,” said Ajit Mishra, SVP, research, Religare Broking.

Until the Nifty crosses 23,500 levels decisively, a sustained recovery is not anticipated, he said.

Most sectoral indices closed higher on Wednesday. The Nifty Media and PSU Bank indices jumped 3.7%. Nifty Metal gained 2.5% while the Bank Nifty rose 2.3%. The Nifty IT and Auto indices moved about 2% higher.

Oil prices soared around up to 5% to jump back above $106 per barrel on Thursday after US President Donald Trump’s address to the nation retriggered worries about heightened conflict in the Middle East, despite hopes for de-escalation yesterday that had briefly cooled down the rally in oil prices to drop below $100 per barrel.

Brent crude futures surged nearly 5% to trade at $106 per barrel. WTI Crude, meanwhile, gained more than 4% to $104 per barrel in the early morning hours of Thursday. Oil prices crossed the crucial $100 mark in March after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, marking the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Front-month Brent futures hit a record monthly gain ‌of 64% in ⁠March, Reuters cited LSEG data dating back to June 1988.

Here’s what Trump said

Trump said that US forces will ‘finish the job’ in Iran soon as “core strategic objectives are nearing completion”. “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help,” he said. “We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we are there to help our allies,” he added.He reiterated his claim that Iran’s “navy is gone, their air force is in ruins” and Tehran’s leaders are all dead. He claimed that joint strikes had “obliterated” the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, and “if we see them make a move, even a move for it, we will hit them with missiles very hard again”. The US President claimed that Iran’s ability to launch missiles and drones has been curtailed.

His comments suggesting that the US might attempt to wrap up the war within the next two-three weeks may have spurred investor worries about heightened attacks on Iranian power and crude facilities, unless some deal is achieved, said Garima Kapoor Deputy Head of Research and Economist at Elara Capital. “The focus of the US has moved away from regime change and opening of Hormuz. We believe, as US Iran escalation ends, the cost of insuring vessels passing through Hormuz would come down too, allowing gradual movement of energy to resume in Hormuz.,” she added.
“Uncertainty will prevail in the near term with crude oil prices remaining firm, even as hopes have been offered for closure or war within next 2 to 3 weeks. So far Iran doesn’t seem to be buckling under any pressure of America, but America’s degrees of freedom are reducing, suggesting limited ability to continue longer. We see a finality to war soon. Heightened Volatility is likely to persist in the short term,” she further said.

What lies ahead?

Even if the war eases in the near-term, oil prices may not cool down soon. Ambit Institutional Equities, in it recentreport, said that even if geopolitical tensions cool off, oil prices will remain elevated, with $80 being the new normal for Brent due to infrastructure damage, geopolitical risk premiums, and inventory restocking.

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

Most small healthcare practice owners do not calculate how much their payment setup actually costs them. WriteUpp, the practice management software used by more than 50,000 health and wellness professionals in the UK, Ireland, and Canada, launched WriteUpp Pay this month — and it directly addresses one of the most overlooked financial problems in independent clinical practice.

There is the card terminal lease or purchase, the transaction fees on a separate billing platform, the staff time spent reconciling payments against invoices, and the revenue lost when patients leave without settling a balance. Add it up across a year, and the number tends to be uncomfortable.

WriteUpp Pay turns an iPhone or Android device into a contactless payment terminal using built-in NFC technology, pulling appointment and invoice data directly from WriteUpp to process payments at the point of care. No card reader. No hardware purchase. No separate reconciliation process.

For solo practitioners and small clinic owners operating on tight margins, the proposition is direct. Your phone is already in your pocket. It can now take payments.

What Independent Practices Actually Spend on Payments

The cost of accepting card payments in a small healthcare practice is rarely limited to the visible transaction fee. Traditional card terminals require either an upfront purchase or a monthly lease agreement. Payment platforms that sit outside the practice management system create reconciliation work. Invoices that go home with patients and are settled days later extend the payment cycle and create cash flow gaps.

Visa data shows that Tap to Phone adoption surged by 320 percent in the UK in 2025, driven largely by small businesses seeking to reduce hardware dependency and simplify payment acceptance. The trend reflects a broader recognition that the tools required to accept card payments have become unnecessarily complicated and expensive for businesses that do not need enterprise-level infrastructure.

WriteUpp Pay addresses this directly. Because the app is built on Stripe’s infrastructure and connects to an existing WriteUpp account, there is no additional platform fee. Stripe’s standard transaction rates apply. For a practice already using WriteUpp and Stripe for online payment collection, adding in-person payment capability requires only downloading the app and completing a brief setup.

How WriteUpp Pay Works Inside the Clinic Room

When they open the app, WriteUpp Pay shows clinicians a live list of that day’s unpaid appointments and recent invoices. They select the relevant appointment, tap to initiate payment, and the patient taps their card or digital wallet toward the top of the phone. The transaction processes in seconds. The invoice inside WriteUpp is marked as paid automatically, and a receipt can be sent to the patient by email without any manual steps.

Digital wallets, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, are accepted alongside standard contactless bank cards. Transactions paid via digital wallet carry no upper limit because biometric authentication replaces the PIN requirement, making WriteUpp Pay practical for higher-value consultations. For transactions using a regular bank card, the FCA lifted the fixed £100 national contactless cap from March 19, allowing banks to set their own limits or let customers configure their own caps going forward.

For practices using iPads or devices without NFC capability, WriteUpp Pay supports the Stripe Wisepad3 Bluetooth card reader, which connects wirelessly and processes payments through the same Stripe infrastructure. This means the app works whether a clinician is using the latest iPhone or an older tablet that lacks NFC support.

“We specifically designed WriteUpp Pay to work for practices of all sizes, not just those with large admin teams and IT budgets,” said Eric Lalonde, CEO of WriteUpp. “A solo physiotherapist should be able to take payment at the end of a session just as easily as a large multi-practitioner clinic. The phone they already carry is all they need.”

The WriteUpp Case for Point of Care Payment

For small healthcare practices, payment timing matters. Revenue collected at the point of care is revenue that does not require chasing. Invoices sent after the fact sit in email inboxes, get forwarded to the wrong person, or simply go unpaid for longer than they should.

WriteUpp Pay removes the gap between service delivery and payment collection. When a clinician finishes a session, payment happens immediately as part of the natural end-of-appointment workflow. There is no separate step for the patient, no invoice to chase, and no administrative follow-up required. The invoice closes in real time and the revenue appears in the practice’s Stripe account without delay.

For practices that currently experience slow payment cycles, the improvement in cash flow predictability can be significant. Stripe’s standard reporting tools mean practices can track daily payment activity without logging into a separate billing system.

“Cash flow is one of the most stressful parts of running a small practice,” Lalonde said. “You have done the work, you have provided the care, but then you spend the next two weeks waiting to be paid for it. WriteUpp Pay makes that problem much smaller. Payment happens when the appointment ends, not a fortnight later.”

Getting Started with WriteUpp Pay

WriteUpp Pay is available from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It requires an existing WriteUpp account, a connected Stripe Unified account, and at least one location set up within the Stripe account. Clinicians log in using their existing WriteUpp credentials, complete the location setup, and the app is ready to take payments.

For practices not yet using WriteUpp, a 30-day free trial is available through the WriteUpp website. The platform starts at £19.95 per month in the UK on a rolling monthly subscription with no minimum contract, giving small practices the ability to evaluate the full platform, including WriteUpp Pay, before committing.