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Oil prices edged higher in early trade on Wednesday after Iran said it would not hold direct talks with U.S. envoys, adding fresh uncertainty to the interim ceasefire between the two sides in the four-month-long war.

Crude oil price on July 1

Brent crude futures were up 50 cents, or 0.69%, at $73.45 a barrel at 1208 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 63 cents, or 0.91%, to $70.13 a barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Doha on Tuesday for what the White House described as “high level” talks. However, Iran and host nation Qatar said the U.S. delegation would meet mediators instead of holding direct discussions with Iranian representatives.

Oil prices had declined sharply over the previous quarter as tensions in the Middle East showed signs of easing. Brent crude dropped by around $45 a barrel between the first and second quarters of this year, marking its steepest quarterly fall since the 2008 global financial crisis.

U.S. crude futures fell by around $31 during the same period, the biggest quarterly decline since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit global oil demand. The losses came after progress towards ending the Middle East conflict reversed the sharp gains triggered earlier by the hostilities.

Analysts have lowered their 2026 oil price forecasts for the first time since the Iran war began, following five consecutive monthly increases, after the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz reduced concerns over prolonged supply disruptions, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday.
Tanker traffic through the strategically important waterway has started recovering, with US Vice President JD Vance saying oil flows have returned to pre-war levels.

What are experts saying?

Even so, a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is expected to take time. It will require coordination of vessel movements, restarting oil wells, repairing damaged infrastructure and reaching agreements on de-mining operations. Some shipowners also continue to remain cautious about operating in the strait and the wider Persian Gulf.
Analysts also noted that global oil inventories were drawn down during the prolonged disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and will take time to recover. Stockpiles may continue to decline before additional Gulf supplies begin reaching international markets.
Last month, Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser warned that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz could delay the return of stability to global oil markets until 2027. He said prolonged interruptions could affect nearly 100 million barrels of oil supply every week. Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil producer.

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

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Global fund managers are reassessing their retreat from Indian equities as a swift drop in oil prices to pre‑Iran war levels and measures to stabilize the rupee have soothed key pain points for investment in Asia’s third largest economy.

Exchange data shows daily selling by global funds has slowed markedly in recent weeks. Meanwhile, analysis by Elara Capital reveals that inflows into U.S.-listed India-focused exchange traded funds turned positive last week for the first time in more than a month.

“Two key headwinds have eased,” said Todd McClone, a portfolio manager at William Blair Investment ‌Management, which oversees about $65 ⁠billion.

“India is ⁠among the most oversold markets we track,” he said. “This macro improvement, alongside a more attractive valuation premium, strengthens the case to act.”

India imports nearly 90% of its crude requirements, making it one of the world’s most vulnerable economies to the Middle East oil shock. Those high energy costs alongside sustained foreign selling of Indian assets pushed the rupee to a record low in May, depressing returns for foreign currency holders.

Overseas investors cited stretched valuations alongside FX and oil risks for reallocating capital elsewhere. India’s fall from grace also coincided with a global rotation into technology-heavy markets, with South Korea and Taiwan emerging as particular winners of the AI boom.
Average allocations to India among emerging market ⁠funds dropped ‌below 10% in April for the first time since early 2021, from a peak of 17.5% in August of 2024, according to figures from Copley Fund Research. Now though, the tide may be turning, with currency and crude pressures easing, ⁠and valuations in high-tech stocks showing signs of excess.

“We have gradually reduced our India underweight in the pan-Asia strategies,” primarily by doubling down on existing high-conviction holdings, said Vikas Pershad, a portfolio manager at M&G, which manages roughly $450 billion.

The additional capital was freed up by scaling back positions in South Korea and Taiwan, he said.

RUPEE RECOVERY

The rupee, which had been under sustained pressure for months, found relief not only from crude’s retreat, but from central bank measures to encourage dollar inflows.

The Indian currency has recovered to around 94.50 per dollar from an all-time low near 97 on May 20 to be among the best-performing Asian currencies in June.

The rupee’s weakness had depressed dollar returns, leaving the MSCI India index sharply trailing emerging ‌market peers.

Christina Woon, head of equity income at Eastspring Investments, which oversees $270 billion, said she is “incrementally more positive” on India.

“Valuation opportunities have opened up over the past few months, so on a selective basis, we would be keen to engage,” she said.

SPOTLIGHT ON EARNINGS

Still, many fund managers ⁠caution that a long-term rerating of the market would require earnings support.

“Improved currency stability and lower oil prices alone are unlikely to change investors views on Indian equities in the near term, though they may provide a more supportive macro backdrop,” said Peeyush Mittal, a portfolio manager at Matthews Asia, which has about $7.7 billion under management.

India’s earnings growth has been limited to single digits in the past two fiscal years. However, analysts predict that will accelerate to the mid-teens in the current and coming fiscal year.

“India is not a low-growth or broken story, but it is a market where valuations remain relatively full,” said Ninghui Liu, head of APAC investment strategy at State Street Investment Management, which manages $5.6 trillion.

“So the bar for increasing allocation is quite clear: We need to see sustained earnings recovery coming through.”

QuickBooks Online is operating normally as of Tuesday morning, according to the latest status checks from Intuit’s official monitoring page and independent outage-tracking services, though a small number of users have reported scattered issues over the past 24 hours.

StatusGator, a third-party service that monitors the uptime of QuickBooks and thousands of other cloud-based platforms, last checked QuickBooks’ status at 9:10 a.m. UTC Tuesday and found the service operational. The site noted three user-submitted reports of potential outages within the preceding 24-hour window, a relatively low volume that falls within the range typically associated with isolated, individual connectivity problems rather than a widespread service disruption. A separate StatusGator monitor tracking the Intuit QuickBooks Online API specifically reported the service operational as of its most recent check Monday afternoon, with five user-submitted reports logged over the prior day.

Intuit, QuickBooks’ parent company, maintains its own official status page where the company posts real-time updates on outages, degraded performance and scheduled maintenance across its various products. According to that page, the most recent disruption affected QuickBooks Online users on June 18, when some customers experienced an error related to sales tax calculations while attempting to save invoices and transactions. Intuit confirmed that issue had been resolved as of June 18 and apologized for any inconvenience it caused. Since that incident, the company’s status history shows no further reported outages for QuickBooks Online itself, though several rounds of planned maintenance have been scheduled and completed for related products in the QuickBooks ecosystem.

Among those scheduled maintenance windows, QuickBooks Time, the company’s time-tracking and workforce management tool, underwent planned maintenance from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Pacific time on June 28, with Intuit noting the work was intended to be brief and apologizing in advance for any disruption. That maintenance window has since concluded. A separate maintenance period for QuickBooks Online itself was logged on June 22, lasting roughly two and a half hours, part of a recurring pattern of brief, planned overnight maintenance windows the company has used periodically throughout June to perform system updates without significantly affecting daytime business hours for most users.

Independent outage trackers have offered a broadly consistent picture in recent days, even as individual user reports continue to surface intermittently, which is typical for any large-scale cloud software platform serving millions of small businesses. Outage-monitoring service Outage.Report indicated QuickBooks Online was functioning normally, noting that report volume remained within the typical range expected for the time of day and that the platform’s last confirmed significant incident occurred roughly six months ago. That service also noted zero outage signals detected within the most recent 24-hour window at the time of its last check.

For users currently experiencing problems with QuickBooks Online, Intuit recommends checking the company’s official status page first to determine whether an outage or scheduled maintenance event has already been logged. If an issue appears on that page, it indicates the company is aware of the problem and actively working toward a resolution. Users can also subscribe to receive automatic notifications whenever a service status changes, alerting them when an outage begins or when systems return to normal operation. For issues that don’t appear on the official status page, Intuit suggests visiting the QuickBooks Community forum, where other users frequently report and discuss similar problems in real time, and where members of the QuickBooks support team regularly post updates and troubleshooting guidance.

QuickBooks Online, developed by Intuit, serves as cloud-based accounting software used widely by small and medium-sized businesses to manage invoicing, expense tracking, payroll processing and financial reporting. Given how central the platform has become to daily financial operations for millions of businesses, even brief outages or partial disruptions can create significant downstream complications, delaying invoice processing, payroll runs and financial reporting deadlines for companies that rely on the service as their primary accounting system.

Historical data compiled by outage trackers underscores how frequently large cloud platforms like QuickBooks experience some level of disruption, even if most incidents are brief and narrowly scoped. StatusGator’s records show it has tracked more than 400 distinct outages affecting QuickBooks users since it began monitoring the service in 2019, spanning everything from brief login failures to more significant disruptions affecting core accounting functions. Past incidents have included problems with invoice printing and sending, sales tax calculation errors, and login access issues, the kinds of disruptions that tend to generate the highest volume of user complaints given how directly they interfere with day-to-day business operations.

For businesses that depend heavily on uninterrupted access to QuickBooks Online, particularly around sensitive periods like payroll processing or invoice deadlines, outage history suggests it remains worthwhile to monitor both Intuit’s official status page and independent tracking services during any reported slowdown, since crowdsourced monitoring tools have at times detected and flagged emerging issues before they were formally acknowledged on a company’s own status page. As of this report, however, no active outage has been confirmed for QuickBooks Online, and the platform appears to be functioning as expected for the vast majority of users.