NIFTY50 Set to Open Higher as RBI Holds Rates at 5.25%

Indian benchmark indices NIFTY50 and SENSEX are set to open higher on Friday, with GIFT Nifty futures at 23,567 pointing to a gain of roughly 150 points at the opening bell as the Reserve Bank of India confirmed its third consecutive repo rate hold at 5.25%. NIFTY50 closed Thursday’s session at 23,416.55 and the BSE SENSEX ended at 74,360, both finishing flat on the day even as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold ₹4,447 crore worth of assets across NSE capital market exchanges in a single session.

FIIs have net-sold ₹2.3 lakh crore of Indian equities since January 2026, per depository data, already past the ₹1.7 lakh crore full-year total from 2025. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) absorbed nearly all of that selling; May alone saw DII net inflows of ₹82,600 crore, sustained by monthly SIP (systematic investment plan) contributions that have consistently crossed ₹29,000 crore, per the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). Oil at $95.52 a barrel, a Korean won at its weakest since March 2009, and a West Asia war now in its 14th week with no peace deal signed are the pressures the RBI’s neutral stance leaves unaddressed.

Chip Stocks Pull Asia Lower

Seoul Bears the Sharpest Loss

South Korea’s KOSPI shed 4.56% to 8,248 points Friday morning, the regional session’s worst decline by a wide margin. The trigger was Broadcom’s fiscal second-quarter earnings report, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on June 3. The semiconductor company posted total revenue of $22.19 billion, up 48% year-on-year, per Broadcom’s official investor relations statement. But its infrastructure software division came in at $7.18 billion against a $7.32 billion analyst estimate, per CNBC, and its Q3 artificial intelligence chip guidance of $16 billion fell short of the $17.2 billion Wall Street consensus, per 247 Wall St. Broadcom shares fell roughly 14% in Thursday trading, pulling Advanced Micro Devices and Intel lower with them.

For Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, South Korea’s two largest chipmakers and dominant suppliers of AI memory, the guidance miss from Broadcom CEO Hock Tan sent a signal about the near-term pace of AI infrastructure investment. Both fell sharply in Seoul’s Friday session. Broadcom’s six core custom chip customers include Google, Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI; any sign that hyperscaler spending is pausing between quarters ripples immediately through the broader Asian semiconductor supply chain.

The Korean won fell to 1,540.55 per dollar on Thursday, its weakest level since March 2009, per Bloomberg data, which also reported $4.6 billion of foreign equity selling in Korean markets in a single session. KED Global’s analysis of the won’s slide toward 1,550 per dollar notes that the currency weakness is unusual given South Korea’s record current account surplus, pointing to capital outflows overwhelming strong trade earnings. South Korea’s Labour Minister added pressure by suggesting that Samsung and other AI-boom beneficiaries share excess profits with workers, the kind of official commentary that has historically rattled the KOSPI before any formal policy follows.

The Ripple from Tokyo to Singapore

Japan’s Nikkei 225 shed 1.77% to 66,260 points, dragged by tech contagion from Seoul’s morning session. Fresh data showed Japan’s real wages rose for a fourth consecutive month in April, the longest such streak in five years, per data published Friday. That reading strengthens the Bank of Japan’s hand ahead of its June 15-16 policy meeting, where a rate hike signal is increasingly expected by market participants. Finance Minister Katayama renewed a warning that Tokyo stands ready to take decisive action on the yen, with USD/JPY hovering near 160.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.40% to 25,152 after Beijing moved to tighten controls on cross-border capital outflows. China’s Shanghai Composite edged down 0.15% to 4,052 as the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) returned to open-market operations following a two-day pause, providing domestic stocks some cushion. Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times fell 0.15% to 5,060, broadly consistent with the cautious regional tone.

Brent at $95 and the Unresolved Strait

Brent crude traded at $95.52 a barrel at 7:45 am IST Friday, up 0.52% from Thursday’s close of $95.14, per Investing.com data. WTI crude gained 0.20% to $93.23 a barrel. The two benchmarks have together risen 3.75% over the past five trading sessions, with the absence of a finalized US-Iran agreement and fresh escalation from Lebanon driving the premium.

The 2026 Iran war began February 28 with US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure, per the UK Parliament Library’s briefing on the 2026 Iran war ceasefire talks. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response, cutting commercial tanker access from more than 100 vessels a day to roughly two dozen, per PBS NewsHour’s reporting on current shipping data. US negotiator Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials have a tentative 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the table, covering a pause in hostilities and a framework for nuclear talks, per the Associated Press, but disputes over uranium enrichment terms and Iran’s stockpile of material enriched to 60% purity have prevented President Trump from signing. With roughly 20% of global oil supply ordinarily transiting the Strait, each week without resolution adds to the supply-risk premium priced into crude.

CNN reported Friday that Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters launched strikes within hours of Israel and Lebanon announcing a ceasefire deal. Lebanon was excluded from the April 8 Iran-US ceasefire, leaving that front as the primary live flashpoint; any escalation there reinforces the case for elevated oil pricing through the summer.

• $95.52/bbl – Brent crude, up 3.75% in five sessions
• $93.23/bbl – WTI crude
• $4,475.90/oz – COMEX gold, down 0.64% from a prior close of $4,505
• 99.407 – US Dollar Index (DXY), approaching the 100 level

Gold fell 0.64% to $4,475.90 per ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s COMEX division, pulled down as the DXY approached 100. A stronger dollar compresses demand for gold and commodities among non-dollar buyers, a dynamic that hits India, Japan, and South Korea simultaneously since all three run large oil import bills priced in dollars. The Lebanon escalation came hours before the RBI’s 10 am decision, adding West Asia risk to the variables Governor Sanjay Malhotra was weighing.

RBI Keeps Rates at 5.25% for the Third Time Running

Inflation Forces the Pause

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) held its repo rate at 5.25% on Friday, the third consecutive pause since the central bank entered an explicit