The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed reviewing certain aspects of the Closing Auction Session (CAS), market timings and the settlement methodology for derivatives contracts, including two options for determining expiry-day settlement prices for index and single-stock derivatives.

The CAS framework was introduced in the equity cash segment of stock exchanges for stocks on which derivatives contracts are available, with effect from August 3, 2026, with the objective of facilitating efficient and transparent price discovery of the closing price of securities.

SEBI said the framework was preceded by two rounds of public consultation, on December 5, 2024 and August 22, 2025, along with discussions with stock exchanges, broker associations, institutional investors, market participants and other stakeholders.

Before CAS was introduced, the closing price of stocks was determined based on the Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) of trades executed during the last 30 minutes of the Continuous Trading Session (CTS). Under CAS, the closing price is determined through an equilibrium price discovery mechanism based on the aggregate of buy and sell orders in the order book during the auction.

SEBI said the initial experience with CAS and feedback from stakeholders had highlighted the need to review certain aspects of CAS and the settlement methodology for derivatives.

“The initial experience with CAS and feedback received from various stakeholders and market participants have accordingly highlighted the need to review a few aspects related to CAS and settlement methodology for derivatives,” SEBI said.
The consultation paper seeks comments on the methodology for determining derivatives settlement prices, the relative timing and duration of CTS, CAS and derivatives trading, and certain operational aspects of CAS and information dissemination.

Derivatives activity around the closing period

SEBI said derivatives trading activity continued to remain significant during the period immediately preceding and around CAS, including during the transition period between the cessation of CTS and commencement of the order-entry phase of CAS.

The consultation paper compares the premium traded in expiring benchmark index options on expiry days during the pre-CAS period from February 2026 to July 2026, covering 26 expiries, with the post-CAS period from August 3 to September 3, 2026, covering five expiries.

During the pre-CAS period, the average premium traded per minute between 3:00 PM and 3:30 PM was ₹126.31 crore on NSE and ₹141.48 crore on BSE.

During the post-CAS period, the average premium traded per minute between 3:20 PM and 3:30 PM, the CAS period, was ₹189.82 crore on NSE and ₹288.94 crore on BSE.

SEBI said the data indicated that derivatives activity remained concentrated towards the close of the trading session.

“The period relevant for determining the settlement prices under CAS is much shorter than the comparable pre-CAS period,” SEBI said.

Activity was also observed during the five-minute transition period. Average premium turnover during the transition period represented 1.72% of the day’s premium turnover on NSE and 1.57% on BSE.

The average amount of premium traded on an expiry day during the five-minute transition period was ₹791.50 crore on NSE and ₹668.38 crore on BSE.

SEBI said this concentration of derivatives activity towards the end of the trading session assumes particular significance on expiry days because the underlying securities are either approaching or undergoing their closing price discovery process while derivatives contracts continue to trade.

Two options for derivatives settlement

SEBI has proposed two options for reviewing the settlement methodology for both index and stock derivatives contracts on expiry days.

Option 1: Blended VWAP

Under Option 1, the settlement price on the expiry day of both index derivatives and stock derivatives would be based on trades executed during the last 30 minutes of CTS and 10 minutes of CAS.

SEBI has referred to this as the “Blended VWAP”.

For index derivatives, the relative contribution of transactions executed during CTS and CAS would be determined based on the actual traded value during the respective periods.

“No separate or predetermined weight would be assigned to CTS or CAS to determine the settlement price of derivatives contracts,” SEBI said.

For stock derivatives, the blended price would be determined on the basis of VWAP across exchanges, considering the actual traded value during the last 30 minutes of CTS and the 10 minutes of CAS.

SEBI said the proposed framework would incorporate actual transactions from both periods and allow their relative contribution to emerge from actual market activity.

In an illustration provided in the consultation paper, total traded value during the relevant period is ₹10,000 crore, comprising ₹9,000 crore during the last 30 minutes of CTS and ₹1,000 crore during CAS. CAS therefore accounts for 10% of the total traded value in the illustration.

SEBI clarified that no separate or predetermined 10% weight would be assigned to CAS.

Option 2: CTS VWAP

Under Option 2, the expiry-day settlement price for both index derivatives and single-stock derivatives would comprise only trades executed during the last 30 minutes of CTS.

This would represent the settlement methodology applicable before the implementation of CAS.

Transactions executed during CAS would not form part of the settlement calculation during the interim period.

SEBI has proposed that, following a sufficient period of experience with CAS, the settlement price for derivatives contracts on expiry day may be transitioned to include transactions executed during both the last 30 minutes of CTS and 10 minutes of CAS, as contemplated under Option 1.

Any such transition would be considered only after a period of not less than one year from the commencement of the revised settlement methodology.

SEBI said the transition would not be automatic after one year and would be considered based on the experience and evidence available at that stage, including whether sufficient liquidity and participation had developed in CAS, whether market participants had gained familiarity with the auction mechanism and how CAS functioned across different market conditions.

IEP and IIV during CAS

The consultation paper also examines the distinction between the Indicative Equilibrium Price (IEP), the final closing price determined at the end of CAS and the settlement price of derivatives contracts.

SEBI said the IEP during CAS is different from an executed traded price during CTS.

During CTS, compatible buy and sell orders are matched and a transaction is executed at the corresponding price.

During CAS, buy and sell orders are accumulated in the auction book and the exchange calculates the price at which the maximum possible quantity could currently be executed under the auction methodology.

As further orders are entered or existing orders are modified or cancelled, the IEP may change.

“The IEP is therefore indicative and evolving during CAS and does not denote a price at which transactions have taken place,” SEBI said.

The final CAS price is the price at which transactions are executed pursuant to the auction.

SEBI has also examined the Indicative Index Value (IIV) during CAS. The index itself is not subject to an auction. Its indicative value during CAS is derived from the continuously evolving IEPs of its constituent securities.

The final value of the index is established only after the auction concludes and the final prices of the relevant constituent securities have been determined.

SEBI said movement in the IEP-derived IIV during CAS should not be interpreted as the index having actually reached the corresponding level.

For instance, if an index has a pre-CAS value of 50,000 and the IIV during CAS is displayed at 48,500 points, this does not mean the index has actually traded or reached 48,500 points.

SEBI said such values “may be misconstrued by market participants as actual levels reached by the index”.

The consultation paper therefore proposes continuing dissemination of security-level IEPs while stopping dissemination of the IEP-derived IIV during CAS.

Market timing options

SEBI has proposed two alternatives for the relative timing of CTS, CAS and derivatives trading.

Under Option A, CTS for CAS stocks would continue until 3:30 PM, CAS would run from 3:31 PM to 3:40 PM and F&O trading would continue until 3:45 PM.

Under Option B, CTS for CAS stocks would continue until 3:15 PM, CAS would run from 3:15 PM to 3:25 PM and F&O trading would end at 3:30 PM.

SEBI has also proposed reducing the transition period between CTS and CAS from five minutes to up to one minute.

The post-CAS F&O trading window would be reduced from 10 minutes to five minutes.

CAS orders and Iceberg orders

The existing ±3% price band for CAS would continue under the proposal.

However, orders placed beyond ±1% of the reference price would not be permitted to be cancelled during CAS. Only price-improving modifications would be permitted.

SEBI has also proposed that unexecuted Iceberg quantities at the end of CTS could be converted into normal limit orders.

The entire pending quantity would then be disclosed in the CAS order book.

Public comments invited

SEBI said the consultation paper seeks to provide greater clarity regarding the distinction between the IEP emerging during CAS, the final closing price determined at the conclusion of CAS and the settlement price of derivatives contracts determined under the proposed settlement methodology.

The regulator has invited public comments, views and suggestions on the proposals. Comments may be submitted to SEBI until October 3, 2026.

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback is calling on the Trump administration to intervene on behalf of Morse H. Tan, a former State Department colleague who has been barred from leaving South Korea for months amid a criminal defamation case.

Tan, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice during President Donald Trump’s first term, has been under an exit ban since June. He is scheduled to face his first trial hearing in South Korea on Friday over allegations that he defamed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during remarks made on American soil last year.

Brownback, who led the religious freedom post from 2018 to 2021 and previously served as governor of Kansas, told The Christian Post he was stunned when he learned of the case against Tan, a legal scholar and professor.

“I was shocked, I really was,” Brownback said.

He argued that the treatment would be unsurprising from an authoritarian government but is jarring coming from South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and democracy.

“Here’s a former U.S. diplomat, a respected legal scholar and professor who’s being arrested and persecuted in a democracy,” Brownback said. “If he were traveling to North Korea or Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. But he’s not. It’s South Korea, and so I was really stunned when I first heard about it.”

How the case began

Tan was swept into a reopened South Korean criminal investigation after traveling to the country in late May to observe local elections amid allegations of irregularities and Chinese interference. He was formally charged without detention in July over comments he made in June 2025 at a National Press Club event in Washington focused on Korean election integrity.

During that event, Tan referenced rumors and reports that Lee had been involved in a sexual assault and murder as a teenager, remarks that circulated widely online at the time. Tan has said he remains skeptical of South Korean court findings and fact-checks that have dismissed those allegations, and he has cast his exit ban as a broader violation of his rights as a U.S. citizen tied to what he describes as the erosion of civil liberties in South Korea.

In social media posts, Tan has said he has been hit with three successive travel bans, which he attributed to his opposition to what he calls a “counterrevolutionary movement against the communizing coup d’état and the subsequent purge” he says is underway in the country. Those bans have reportedly been extended until at least November.

Tan, a Christian, has also suggested he may be targeted in part because of his faith, and he has described South Korea’s current government as “a rising dictatorship,” alleging the country faces “massive infiltration” by Chinese Communist Party and North Korean operatives.

Wider concerns about religious freedom

Brownback pointed to South Korea’s broader political climate as cause for alarm, noting that former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year over his December 2024 declaration of martial law, an order Yoon said was necessary to counter pro-North Korean elements before he was impeached and removed from office in 2025.

Brownback also cited the detainment of religious figures, including Pastor Son Hyun-bo, who met with Trump at the White House last month after months in South Korean custody. Son leads the conservative Christian movement “Save Korea” and has organized rallies against Yoon’s impeachment; he faced allegations of illegal electioneering tied to the country’s presidential election.

“I’m really concerned about the trend right now, particularly toward religious leaders or religious-affiliated people,” Brownback said. “They’ve arrested a number of religious leaders, tried them and are certainly trying to intimidate religious figures and leaders. And I think it’s a horrible trend line for that democracy. I don’t understand it.”

Brownback warned the approach carries long-term risk, saying such tactics “will not play well for them long-term.”

“It’s against history. It’s against what South Korea has historically done,” he said. “And I understand maybe there’s some near-term political benefits potentially, but this is not the way for a democracy to be trending, and particularly such a key ally of the United States in that region.”

He further raised concerns about Chinese Communist Party influence reaching into South Korean institutions, describing it as part of a broader pattern.

“That’s their playbook in democracies. They use our system against us. They use these open systems to infiltrate, to push us, to really try to ride the system,” Brownback said, adding that he believes the same dynamic is unfolding “in South Korea, Japan and other relatively open societies in the world.”

A delicate diplomatic balance

Brownback acknowledged the difficult position facing the Trump administration, which relies on South Korea as a strategic partner amid rising competition with China, but he urged officials to push back against Seoul’s conduct.

“We’re at a tough time, and you play one game at a time, as the football saying is. And right now, the game is China. We need South Korea. We need Japan. We need these allies,” he said. “And so I’m sure there’s some hesitancy about pushing back too aggressively. But this is just not the way democracy should operate.”

He drew a comparison to India, which he said presents a similar challenge as a key ally accused of persecuting Christians and other religious minorities, and argued that religious liberty underpins other civil freedoms.

“Religious freedom is that human right that can really pull the other ones along, or it also can be used to stymie the other ones,” Brownback said. “If you stymie religious freedom, it’s going to hurt your freedom of speech, your freedom of assembly, your other basics. This is the human right that can be the engine for pulling the others, but if that engine is stalled, it’s going to hurt the others, too.”

Congressional and State Department response

Last month, a group of congressional Republicans sent a letter to South Korean Ambassador Kang Kyung-hwa condemning what they called Tan’s “remarkably unfair treatment” over statements made in the United States.

The State Department has said it is aware of Tan’s situation, telling The Christian Post that the administration “has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans” and “takes seriously any concerns that U.S. citizens are subject to exit bans without a fair and transparent process to resolve them.” A department spokesperson added that, “due to privacy and other considerations, we have nothing further to share at this time.”

Tan’s trial hearing is scheduled for Friday in South Korea.

Ben Shelton outlasted fellow American Frances Tiafoe 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 on Friday night to reach his first career Grand Slam final, putting the 23-year-old within one victory of becoming the first American man to win a major singles title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open.

The No. 8 seed’s win over No. 11 Tiafoe in front of a capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium came on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, adding an emotional backdrop to an already charged all-American semifinal between two close friends and longtime rivals. Shelton will face top-seeded Alexander Zverev, who beat Karen Khachanov earlier in the day, in Sunday’s final.

A back-and-forth battle between friends

Tiafoe claimed the opening set 6-4, marking the third time in his career he has taken the first set of a US Open semifinal. Once again, it wasn’t enough to get him over the hump. Shelton responded by breaking early in the second set, and though Tiafoe broke right back, Shelton settled in to take the set 6-3 and level the match.

The turning point came in the third set. With Tiafoe serving to stay in the set at 3-5, the two men played an epic 15-minute game that finally ended when Tiafoe netted a forehand, handing Shelton the break and the set 6-3. Shelton landed 82% of his first serves during that stretch, a number that helped fuel his surge through the middle of the match.

The fourth set proved just as tense. Shelton and Tiafoe traded holds deep into the set before Shelton finally broke through, closing it out 7-5. In the final game, with Tiafoe serving at 5-6, Shelton won the first three points to earn three match points. Tiafoe saved the first, but his second serve on the next point floated into the net, sending Shelton into his first Grand Slam final.

Shelton finished the match with 20 aces and 47 winners, converting five of his break-point opportunities against Tiafoe. At one point during the third set, Shelton’s serve was clocked at a stunning 158 mph, which would have set an ATP record, though it was later corrected to 144 mph.

Two friends, one shot at history

Shelton and Tiafoe — teammates on the U.S. Davis Cup squad and friends off the court — shared a long embrace at the net once the match ended. Both had arrived at Friday’s semifinal on the back of grueling five-set quarterfinal wins: Shelton upset defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in a match that didn’t finish until 3:33 a.m. Wednesday, the latest conclusion in US Open history, while Tiafoe rallied from two sets down to beat fellow American Alex Michelsen in a four-hour, 38-minute marathon.

Speaking earlier in the tournament about the depth of American men’s tennis heading into this year’s Open, Tiafoe framed the run by him and Shelton as part of a broader trend rather than an isolated bright spot.

“I think U.S. tennis is in a great place,” Tiafoe said. “So whatever they’re doing aboveboard is great and continue to do so.”

He pointed to a wider group of American contenders carrying the sport forward. “But the guys, we’ve been doing pretty well,” Tiafoe said. “Someone is always going deep in majors. Fritz has been playing great for a long time, Ben and myself. We have Learner. Obviously you have Alex Michelsen, Tommy. There’s a good group of us that are playing really g—” he continued, listing off a roster of young American talent that includes Taylor Fritz, Learner Tien and Tommy Paul.

A milestone beyond the scoreline

Shelton’s win carries significance well beyond the immediate stakes of Sunday’s final. He is the first Black American man to reach a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, and a win over Zverev would make him the first American man to capture a Grand Slam singles title in 23 years. Shelton is already guaranteed to rise to No. 4 in the world once the tournament concludes, regardless of Sunday’s outcome.

Shelton has now reached the semifinals of a major three times — the 2023 US Open, the 2025 Australian Open and this year’s tournament — but had never previously advanced past that stage. Tiafoe, meanwhile, has now fallen in the semifinals of the US Open on multiple occasions, including a loss to Taylor Fritz at the same stage in 2024, without yet breaking through to a Grand Slam final of his own.

Looking ahead to Sunday

Zverev, the tournament’s top seed, will be playing in his first US Open final since 2020 and is looking to add to a résumé that already includes his first Grand Slam title, won at the French Open in June. Sunday’s final will mark a clash between a proven Grand Slam champion in Zverev and an American crowd favorite chasing a milestone that has eluded the country’s men’s game for more than two decades.

Arthur Ashe Stadium, which was visibly split in its loyalties Friday given the all-American matchup, is expected to fully rally behind Shelton on Sunday. The atmosphere inside the stadium during Friday’s semifinal was already heightened by a string of celebrity appearances, with Shelton noting after the match that the star power in the crowd occasionally pulled his focus mid-match.

For now, the drought remains intact — but for the first time since Roddick’s title run in 2003, an American man stands one match away from ending it on home soil at Flushing Meadows.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk weighed in Friday on a growing industry debate over artificial intelligence’s role in software development, declaring technology the most important advantage in warfare in response to comments from veteran programmer John Carmack about the future of manual coding.

Musk’s remark came after Carmack, the founder and CEO of AI startup Keen Technologies and a longtime figure in computer programming and video game design, published a detailed post on social media platform X arguing that traditional hand-coding skills are becoming less essential as AI tools advance.

Carmack’s martial arts comparison

Carmack framed his argument through an analogy to the evolution of martial arts after World War II, when disciplines that originated as battlefield survival techniques gradually transformed into sports and forms of personal development rather than practical necessities.

“AI is making many other programming skills much less critical,” Carmack wrote. “We aren’t there yet, but carefully writing code completely by hand is moving from a -jitsu to a -do. Code-do? Codo?”

In martial arts terminology, “-jitsu” traditionally refers to techniques developed for combat effectiveness, while “-do” refers to practices centered on discipline and personal growth rather than survival. Carmack used the distinction to suggest that hand-coding may be shifting from a skill programmers need to perform their jobs into something closer to a specialized craft pursued by choice.

Carmack also cautioned programmers against clinging too tightly to manual skills as AI tools continue to improve, warning against becoming “the out of touch Kung Fu master… that gets mauled by an amateur MMA fighter.”

A broader industry conversation about AI and code

Carmack’s comments arrive amid a wider shift in how prominent figures across the technology industry are discussing AI’s growing role in software engineering. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in January that engineers at his company had already stopped writing code by hand, predicting that AI could take over most software engineering tasks within six to 12 months.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman offered a similarly striking data point in May, saying the share of code generated by AI coding tools at his company jumped from roughly 20% to 80% within a single month. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has made comparable claims about his own company, stating that approximately 75% of new code written at Google is now AI-generated.

Not every prominent voice in the industry shares that level of enthusiasm. Minecraft creator Markus Persson, known widely by his online handle Notch, dismissed AI-assisted coding as “an incredibly bad idea” in a January post on X, arguing that the approach prioritizes speed of typing over sound underlying logic.

Musk’s response ties the debate to broader strategic stakes

Musk’s reply to Carmack reframed the coding debate in more expansive terms, tying it to competitive dynamics well beyond the software industry. By describing technology as the “most important advantage” in war, Musk’s comment suggested that the trajectory of AI-driven coding tools carries implications reaching into national security and geopolitical competition, not merely software development practices.

Musk has repeatedly positioned himself at the center of conversations about AI’s transformative potential across multiple ventures, including Tesla’s autonomous driving programs, SpaceX’s engineering operations and his AI company xAI. His comment Friday added another data point to a running public conversation among technology executives about how quickly AI systems are reshaping fields once considered dependent on specialized human expertise.

Automation concerns extend beyond software

The debate over AI’s effect on coding is unfolding alongside broader predictions about automation’s reach into professional work more generally. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman has forecast that most professional tasks could become fully automated by AI within 12 to 18 months, a timeline that would extend well beyond software engineering into a wide range of white-collar professions.

Such predictions have fueled ongoing anxiety within the technology workforce about job security and the pace at which AI tools are being integrated into core business functions. At the same time, industry leaders like Amodei and Pichai have framed the shift as a natural evolution of engineering practice rather than a wholesale replacement of human judgment, positioning AI tools as accelerants that still require human oversight, architecture decisions and quality control.

What the exchange signals for programmers

Carmack’s framing suggests a middle path between the extremes of the current debate. Rather than arguing that coding skills will disappear entirely, he characterized the shift as a change in the purpose those skills serve, moving from a practical necessity to something closer to a chosen craft, in the same way that martial arts persisted as a discipline long after most practitioners stopped needing it to survive physical combat.

That framing has resonated with segments of the programming community grappling with how to adapt as AI tools increasingly take on responsibilities once reserved for human developers, including tasks ranging from writing boilerplate code to debugging and even architectural decision-making in some organizations.

Ongoing uncertainty around timelines

Despite the confident predictions from multiple technology executives, precise timelines for AI’s takeover of coding tasks remain a subject of active disagreement. Estimates from industry leaders have ranged from months to a couple of years, and skeptics like Persson continue to question whether current AI coding tools produce code that is reliable and well-reasoned rather than simply fast to generate.

As the conversation continues to play out across social media and industry commentary, Musk’s comment linking the debate to broader questions of technological advantage suggests that discussions once confined to software engineering circles are increasingly being framed in terms of competitive and strategic significance, reflecting how central AI-driven coding tools have become to conversations about technology’s trajectory more broadly.

Multi-cap and flexi-cap strategies dominated the top-performing PMS portfolios in August, with five of the 10 strategies delivering double-digit monthly returns, according to PMSBazaar.

Equity PMS strategies posted strong gains during the month, led by East Green Advisors’ Quant Strategy, which emerged as the best performer with a 14.73% return for the month ended August 31, 2026.

East Green Advisors’ Quant Strategy, a multi-cap and flexi-cap strategy benchmarked against the BSE 500 TRI, topped the performance chart with a 14.73% return in August.

Atlas Integrated Finance‘s Momentum 20 PMS Fund followed with a 14.46% return. The multi-cap and flexi-cap strategy was the second-best performer during the month.

Hem Securities‘ India Rising SME Stars, the only small-cap strategy among the top performers, gained 13.08% in August. The strategy is benchmarked against the BSE 500 TRI.

Jainam Broking’s Jainam Value Maxima, a multi-cap and flexi-cap strategy benchmarked against the Nifty 50 TRI, posted a 12.30% return. Accelt Asset Management’s Long Term Equity Fund rounded out the double-digit performers with an 11.32% gain.
The remaining strategies in the performance list posted negative returns during August. Amaltas Asset Management’s Strategic Opportunities Series 1 fell 4.23%, while Lakewater Advisors’ India Growth declined 5.12%.Omniscience Capital Advisors’ two thematic strategies were also among the weakest performers. Omni Industry Inc fell 3.67%, while Omni Energy Transition declined 4.50%.

Ashima Capital Management’s Long Heritage Value Fund recorded the steepest decline among the strategies listed, falling 7.64% during August.

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Worst-performing PMS in August

Ashima Capital Management’s Long Heritage Value Fund was the weakest-performing PMS strategy in the August performance list, declining 7.64% during the month.

Lakewater Advisors’ India Growth followed with a 5.12% fall. Omniscience Capital Advisors’ Omni Energy Transition declined 4.50%, while Amaltas Asset Management’s Strategic Opportunities Series 1 lost 4.23%.

Omniscience Capital Advisors’ Omni Industry Inc rounded out the list of declining strategies with a 3.67% fall in August.

Markets outlook

India’s benchmark equity index Nifty50 faces a heavy-lifting problem. While foreign investor flows could return, crude oil prices may stabilise and bond yields could ease, a durable recovery in the Nifty may remain difficult unless the market’s two heavyweight sectors — banks and IT — begin to participate, analysts said.

Analysts remain divided on the near-term outlook.

The Nifty’s struggle to reclaim the 24,000 mark is beginning to look less like a pause and more like a warning signal, according to Anand James, chief market strategist at Geojit Investments.

“After closing below the rising trendline that had supported the index since April, the benchmark faces the risk of a deeper correction towards 23,260,” James said.

He said 23,800 remains a firm near-term support level, but any recovery would need to push the Nifty above 24,215 for the market structure to turn constructive.

Until then, attempts to bounce could remain short-lived as traders assess whether the index is entering a wider corrective phase.

In contrast, Elara Securities remains bullish on the Nifty despite the index’s prolonged stagnation. Harendra Kumar, managing director and CEO of Elara Securities, expects the index to reach 30,000 over the next 15 months.

Kumar expects the market to deliver a 15%-20% return over the next 15 months, supported by a stabilising rupee, a turnaround in foreign investor flows and resilient corporate earnings.

“Our base case is a 15% to 20% return over the next 15 months. It could go higher, because once momentum picks up, markets can go anywhere,” Kumar said.

He added that the risk-reward currently favours India, particularly as earnings expectations for markets such as the Nasdaq, Dow Jones and KOSPI are expected to weaken after next year.

This article has been written by Kumar Gaurav, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an Investment Adviser. Gaurav and his/her ‘relative(s)’ (as defined under Section 2(77) of the Companies Act, 2013) do not hold any financial interest in the companies mentioned in this article as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of The Economic Times Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment.

De-dollarisation refers to efforts by countries to reduce their dependence on the US dollar in international trade, finance, and foreign exchange reserves. The topic has gained renewed attention as BRICS nations and several emerging economies explore the use of local currencies and alternative payment systems for cross-border transactions.

For decades, the US dollar has dominated global trade and commodity markets. Most commodities, including crude oil, natural gas, gold, industrial metals, and agricultural products, are priced and traded in dollars. However, rising geopolitical tensions, sanctions-related concerns, and the desire of emerging economies to diversify their reserves have encouraged countries to look for alternatives.

Although the dollar remains the world’s leading reserve currency, a gradual shift toward local-currency trade and reserve diversification could influence commodity prices, investment flows, and global trade patterns.

Why Are Countries Supporting De-dollarisation?

One of the biggest advantages of de-dollarisation is reduced dependence on a single currency. Countries can lower their exposure to dollar shortages and exchange-rate fluctuations by conducting trade in their own currencies.
Using local currencies can also reduce transaction and hedging costs, making international trade more efficient. Another important benefit is greater financial sovereignty. Countries heavily dependent on the dollar-based financial system may be vulnerable to sanctions or policy decisions taken outside their control.

In addition, central banks are increasingly diversifying their reserves by holding more gold and other currencies, helping reduce concentration risk.

Impact on Commodity Markets

De-dollarisation could bring both opportunities and challenges to commodity markets. On the positive side, local-currency trade can reduce dependence on the dollar and insulate commodity-importing countries from sharp currency fluctuations. It may also make trade more flexible during periods of financial stress.However, moving away from a common settlement currency could increase market fragmentation and create greater currency-related volatility. Pricing and settlement across multiple currencies may also add complexity to global trade.

Gold: The Biggest Beneficiary

Among all commodities, gold is likely to benefit the most from de-dollarisation. As countries diversify reserves away from dollar-denominated assets, many central banks have increased their gold holdings. Gold is viewed as a neutral reserve asset that is not tied to any country’s monetary policy.

According to the World Gold Council, central banks purchased a record 1,136 tonnes of gold in 2022, followed by 1,051 tonnes in 2023 and 1,045 tonnes in 2024. Even in 2025, purchases remained strong at 863 tonnes, far above the long-term annual average of 473 tonnes recorded between 2010 and 2021. This sustained buying has become a major support factor for gold prices and could continue if reserve diversification accelerates.

Can the Dollar Be Replaced?

A complete replacement of the US dollar appears unlikely in the near future. The dollar remains the dominant global currency because of the size of the US economy, deep financial markets, and investor confidence in US assets.

Nevertheless, a gradual decline in its dominance is possible as more countries adopt local-currency trade arrangements and diversify their reserves. The United States is unlikely to favour any move that weakens the dollar’s global role, but it cannot prevent sovereign nations from choosing alternative settlement methods.

If de-dollarisation gains momentum, gold demand could remain strong and the influence of US monetary policy on global commodity markets may gradually diminish. At the same time, increased use of multiple currencies could lead to higher volatility in international trade.

India’s Position

India has adopted a balanced and pragmatic approach toward de-dollarisation. The country supports the use of the rupee in bilateral trade and encourages local-currency settlements where practical. At the same time, India has not advocated replacing the US dollar. Given its strong economic ties with both the United States and emerging economies, India’s focus is on reducing transaction costs, improving trade efficiency, and strengthening financial resilience without disrupting access to global financial markets.

De-dollarisation is not about replacing the US dollar overnight. Instead, it represents a gradual move toward a more diversified global monetary system. While its impact on most commodities may be mixed, gold stands out as a clear beneficiary due to rising central bank demand. Although the dollar is likely to remain dominant for years to come, growing local-currency trade and reserve diversification could slowly reshape the future of global trade and commodity markets.

(The author is Head of Commodity Research, Geojit Investments )