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Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Sensex today | Stock Market Live Updates: Markets may open lower on fresh West Asia escalation, US inflation

The United States launched new strikes against multiple targets in Iran, the US military said on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump vowed even more attacks if no peace deal is secured. The escalation pushed Brent crude futures up 1.1 per cent to $94 per barrel, while Asian stocks dropped 0.4 per cent. GIFT Nifty futures were trading at 23,069 as of 7:43 a.m. IST, indicating that the benchmark Nifty 50 would open below Wednesday’s close of 23,214.95. The Iran war, now in its fourth month, has raised energy prices and triggered concerns over its impact on growth and inflation in India, the world’s third-largest oil importer. Data released overnight showed that US consumer inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in May, boosted by surging energy prices amid the West Asia conflict, giving the Federal Reserve more ammunition to keep interest rates unchanged into 2027. Higher interest rates in the US tend to make emerging market equities less attractive for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). FPIs sold Indian shares worth ₹2,125 crore ($223.06 million) on Wednesday, marking a ninth straight session of outflows. They have offloaded a record $30.4 billion worth of shares in India so far this year. The Sensex traded 456.47 points or 0.62 per cent lower at 73,526.71 at 9:17 a.m. after opening at 73,615.99 from the previous close of 73,983.18, while the Nifty 50 fell 127.55 points or 0.55 per cent to 23,087.40. Gold prices fluctuate as US strikes on Iran escalate tensions, impacting global markets and inflation amid volatile trading conditions. Time Technoplast has executed a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Systoverse Private Ltd (SPL), a company incorporated in Maharashtra, India, to record the terms of the investment, including the terms on which the company shall acquire equity shares equivalent to 76 per cent of the total paid-up share capital of Systoverse Private Ltd on a net asset basis. The remaining 24 per cent stake will continue to be held by the existing shareholders of SPL. Adani Airport City Ltd (AACL), a wholly owned step-down subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, has completed the acquisition of 100 per cent of the equity share capital of Portus Ventures Private Ltd (PVPL). “Nifty is expected to open lower around 23,050, down nearly 150 points, indicating a cautious start amid mixed global cues. The index is now trading near a crucial support zone, making today’s session important from a technical standpoint. 23,000–23,100 remains a key support range, and a sustained break below this zone could trigger further selling pressure and weaken the short-term structure.

Sensex today | Stock Market Live Updates: Markets may open lower on fresh West Asia escalation, US inflation
Europe
BBC Business

US inflation surges to three-year high of 4.2%

US prices in May rose at their fastest rate in three years, with inflation surging to 4.2%. The rise, from 3.8% a month earlier, was largely driven by rising energy costs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. It marked the third month in a row the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has risen, with households increasingly feeling the strain of the US and Israel's war in Iran. Higher inflation raises the likelihood of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates in a bid to curtail spending. The last time inflation was higher was in April 2023, when the US was still grappling with the fallout from the energy shock sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Overall energy bills including gas and electricity were almost a quarter higher in May than a year earlier, with petrol responsible for much of the increase. According to separate figures from motoring group the AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular petrol in the US is currently $4.15, a sharp increase from $2.98 on February 28, when President Donald Trump launched strikes on Iran. In response to the strikes, Iran has effectively shuttered the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway, typically responsible for shipping around a fifth of the world's oil and gas which has resulted in a surge in prices. Elsewhere, the BLS pointed to the increasing cost of plane tickets, personal and medical care, recreation and communication. The CPI is a measure of how much prices have risen in a given month compared to the same month a year prior. The Fed's long-term inflation target is 2%. May's inflation increase captures the challenge facing President Trump and the Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections. Economists have warned that, even with a swift resolution to the war, it could take until 2027 for the the normal flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz to be restored.

US inflation surges to three-year high of 4.2%
Europe
The Guardian

US inflation jumped to 4.2% in May, the third consecutive increase since start of Iran war

People pump gas at a gas station in Washington DC on 30 May 2026. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/ShutterstockView image in fullscreenPeople pump gas at a gas station in Washington DC on 30 May 2026. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/ShutterstockInflationUS inflation jumped to 4.2% in May, the third consecutive increase since start of Iran warBefore the conflict began, inflation was at 2.4%, but the closure of the strait of Hormuz has affected energy prices US inflation jumped to an annual rate of 4.2% in May, the third consecutive monthly increase since the start of the Iran war and a three-year high, as Americans continue to face steep oil prices. Prices have increased sharply over the past several months, rising at an annual rate of 3.3% in March before going up to 3.8% in April. In February, before the conflict began, inflation was at 2.4%. Energy prices were once again responsible for the increase in the consumer price index, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accounting for 60% of the overall monthly increases. The national average price for a gallon of gas is $4.15, according to AAA, which is slightly lower than where the price was a month ago but still $1 per gallon more than a year ago. Airline fares also increased 26.7% annually, a squeeze travelers may have already noticed ahead of the busy summer season. Other essential everyday expenses, such as food, energy services and clothing, also increased. Stripping out volatile energy and food prices, core CPI increased 2.9%. The White House said the newest inflation figures reinforce that “despite temporary disruptions as a result of Iran’s efforts to subvert the free flow of energy, President Trump’s broader economic agenda continues to deliver meaningful results for the American people”. “Prices of prescription drugs, dairy products, cars, as well as both health and auto insurance continue to decline thanks to the Trump administration’s policymaking,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “The Administration will continue pushing our affordability agenda to enable Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money.” Since the beginning of the US-Israel war with Iran, inflation has hit its highest levels since 2023, though they still remain well below the peaks recorded in 2022, when inflation hit 9%. Higher prices have dampened Americans’ expectations of their financial outlook. According to a survey released on Monday from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, households have become more pessimistic about inflation, the labor market, finding a job and the potential for layoffs. Consumer sentiment has also plummeted to a historic low, according to data from the University of Michigan, after falling for three consecutive months. The new inflation data puts pressure on officials with the US Federal Reserve, who are meeting for the first time next week under the central bank’s new chair, Kevin Warsh. The Fed has voted to maintain interest rates since the end of last year. The central bank has been aiming for a target annualized inflation rate of 2%. Warsh said he believed the rates, which stand at 3.5% to 3.75%, should be lowered, aligning himself with Donald Trump, who has spent the last year trying to coerce the central bank into lowering rates. Even though prices are rising, the president is unlikely to be deterred from calling for rate cuts. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters that he didn’t think US fuel prices were “very high, relatively speaking.”

US inflation jumped to 4.2% in May, the third consecutive increase since start of Iran war
Europe
BBC Business

Elon Musk's SpaceX raises $75bn ahead of record stock market debut

SpaceX has raised $75bn (£56bn) from financial firms ahead of it becoming a publicly traded company on Friday, in what is expected to be the highest-value stock listing in history. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the space exploration and artificial intelligence (AI) company said it had sold $75bn in shares priced at $135 each. The share price matches the estimate SpaceX gave last week, leaving the firm's expected initial stock market value to be nearly $1.8tn. At that value, chief executive Elon Musk - already the richest man in the world - is set to become the world's first trillionaire. Once shares start trading, their value could rise or fall depending on how many shares are made available for sale, and how strong the demand is for those shares. If the company's shares sell at or above $135 when trading opens on Friday, SpaceX will immediately become one of the most valuable public companies in the world. However, it is up to investors to decide if they think the shares are worth that much. Interest in acquiring a stake in SpaceX among investment funds and individuals, often referred to as "retail investors," is increasingly expected to be high. Certain financial analysts have already set target prices for the shares above SpaceX's $135 estimate, including the global brokerage Oppenheimer which said on Thursday it expects the company to hit $190 a share. The public price for a share in the company is ultimately decided through what is essentially an auction on the open stock market. Tom Mueller, who was the first official employee of SpaceX and is now the founder of Impulse Space, told the BBC's Michelle Fleury that "it's unbelievable" to see what the company has become. Mueller left SpaceX in 2020 and maintains a considerable financial interest in the firm.

Elon Musk's SpaceX raises $75bn ahead of record stock market debut
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Mag 7? MANGOS? SpaceX forces name rethink on Wall Street's tech-stock moniker

SpaceX roared into markets this past ‌week with a valuation of more than $2 trillion, surpassing two members of Wall ​Street's "Magnificent Seven" and raising a key question: Does the Mag 7 name still ⁠fit? And if not, what should replace it? The IPO, the biggest in U.S. history, vaulted SpaceX's value above two Mag 7 members: CEO Elon Musk's other company, Tesla , and Meta Platforms. With trillion-dollar contenders such as OpenAI ‌and Anthropic waiting in the IPO wings, the club may soon need a name change, analysts said. With SpaceX's arrival, "it becomes very hard to keep using Mag 7 as ‌the clean shorthand for market leadership because one of the most important companies in ‌the ⁠world would immediately be outside the label," said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum ⁠Equities. These groupings are not formal market categories, but shorthand labels coined by strategists, investors and the media to capture the hottest big stocks at a given moment. Such monikers have a long history, ranging from the "Nifty 50" of the 1960s and ​1970s to the "Four Horsemen" of the ‌late 1990s dot-com boom. One sobriquet gaining traction on X is "MANGOS", which stands for Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Alphabet, OpenAI and SpaceX. That grouping is far from standardized, with some interpreting the "A" as Apple, currently the third most-valuable ‌U.S.-listed firm. "We are already referring to it internally and the industry is picking up on ​it as well," said Aga Kuplinska, SVP of product development at Tidal Financial Group, which helps asset managers roll out ETFs. The "Magnificent Seven" term was coined by BofA Global Research Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett in late 2023 to describe ‌seven heavyweight technology-related stocks: Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft . With an AI boom driving stock markets to record highs and the sudden appearance of new trillion-dollar companies, the leaderboard is often in a state of flux. In a May 22 note, BofA wrote about the "AI Big 10," adding Broadcom, Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices to the original seven, reflecting the semiconductor rally of the past year. That group accounts for more than 40 per cent of the S&P 500's weight, according to ‌LSEG data. The labels have evolved before - from FANG to FAANG to the Magnificent Seven - each tracking shifts in companies ​that led the market. FANG covered Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. FAANG added Apple, and Magnificent Seven dropped Netflix while adding Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, each shift reflecting changes at ⁠the top of the market. "It's been Mag 7 for several years now. Maybe the markets are excited ⁠for something new," said Dustin Thackeray, chief investment officer at Crewe Advisors.

Mag 7? MANGOS? SpaceX forces name rethink on Wall Street's tech-stock moniker
North America
Yahoo Finance

SpaceX Closes Up 19% — Secures MSCI, FTSE Fast-Track Index Inclusion

After Elon Musk’s rocket manufacturing company SpaceX (SPCX) debuted on Nasdaq on Friday at a premium, major index providers FTSE Russell and MSCI added the company to key benchmarks. SPCX opened at around $150 on Friday — an 11% premium to the IPO price — and climbed as much as 30% higher in early trading, briefly pushing the company’s market capitalization above $2.2 trillion. The company closed its first day of trade up 19%. FTSE Russell published a formal index notice on Friday confirming the immediate addition of SpaceX to the Russell US Index Series under its fast-entry rules. The notice states that SpaceX satisfies the fast-entry criteria following its IPO and will be added to the Russell 1000, Russell Top 200, and other Russell US indexes effective after the market close on June 26, 2026. The addition follows FTSE Russell’s May 2026 rule change, which allows large new listings that qualify for the Russell Top 500 to enter indexes after just five trading days, instead of waiting for the next quarterly reconstitution. MSCI also said that it will add SpaceX to its standard and large-cap indexes, effective June 29. This is in alignment with MSCI’s announcement earlier this month that SpaceX is expected to “easily clear” its size and free-float thresholds for early inclusion of large IPOs into its global standard indexes. These coordinated additions by FTSE Russell and MSCI will create near-term demand from trillions of dollars in passive funds tracking the indexes. These decisions contrast sharply with S&P Dow Jones Indices, which declined to adjust its criteria and has ruled out SpaceX’s quick inclusion in the S&P 500. S&P maintains requirements for four consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability and a longer seasoning period — criteria SpaceX does not currently meet. However, the company is still expected to be fast-tracked into the Nasdaq-100, which allows newly listed companies that rank in the top 40 by market capitalization to join the index after just 15 trading days under its new rules. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SPCX trended within the ‘extremely bullish’ territory, coupled with ‘extremely high’ message volume.

SpaceX Closes Up 19% — Secures MSCI, FTSE Fast-Track Index Inclusion
Europe
BBC Business

Elon Musk's stratospheric rise to trillionaire status - in charts

Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire on Friday, following the record-breaking stock market debut of his company SpaceX. With a current estimated net worth of about $1.11tn, according to Bloomberg, Musk sits well above wealthy billionaires topping rich lists, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and boss of French luxury goods group LVMH, Bernard Arnault. Musk - who first made waves in the tech industry in the late 1990s - hasn't always topped the rich list though. In January 2020, he was only the 35th richest person in the world, with a fortune of around $28bn. But his wealth took off that year as the value of his two biggest companies - electric carmaker Tesla and space exploration and AI firm SpaceX - began to grow sharply. Musk holds large stakes in both businesses. The long-scroll chart below traces this volatile journey over the last six years. His wealth trajectory mimics a jagged mountain range, with dramatic surges and steep declines driven by swings in Tesla's share price, the rising value of SpaceX, and shifts in political and investor sentiment during his time in the Trump administration. By January 2021, the tech mogul had risen to become the world's richest person, briefly overtaking Jeff Bezos. But his fortune dipped in 2022 amid a downturn in US tech stocks, and fell sharply again in early 2025, as investor concerns over his role in the Trump administration coincided with a slump in Tesla's share price. Each time, he has come back stronger. Now a trillionaire, Musk is almost four times richer than his nearest rival Larry Page, and more than five times richer than Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg. But what does a thousand billion dollars (that's a one followed by 12 zeros) actually look like? The chart below breaks this unimaginable sum down, dot by dot, comparing his total wealth to other high-profile figures, government spending budgets and luxury assets. It's important to remember that Musk's wealth is mainly made up of stock holdings that can rise or fall depending on investor sentiment. Indeed in February, the tech mogul said on X that less than "0.1%" of his net worth was held in cash. Musk currently owns a 12% stake in Tesla, a company with a market valuation of around $1.5tn, and a 42% stake in SpaceX, which is now worth more than $2tn. Many of his shares have been pledged as collateral against personal loans.

Elon Musk's stratospheric rise to trillionaire status - in charts
North America
CNBC Economy

The May inflation numbers are due out Wednesday morning. Here's what to expect

Inflation numbers out Wednesday are expected to cross another unpleasant threshold as the cost of living continues to climb for U.S. consumers. If the Wall Street consensus is correct, the consumer price index is expected to show inflation running at a 4.2% annual rate off an expected 0.5% monthly gain in May. That would mark the first time the CPI has passed 4% since May 2023 and would be the highest reading since April of that year. Of course, much of the rise in the headline number, which was at just 2.4% a year ago, can be attributed to the surge in energy costs resulting from the Iran war. However, even core prices, which exclude food and energy, are projected to post a 2.9% annual reading after rising 0.3% in May, according to Dow Jones. Worries are accelerating that the burst of inflation is broadening, as the jump in oil prices starts to spread through the economy and raise expectations that inflation isn't dissipating anytime soon. "It's not just an oil story, it's a money supply story, and it's increasingly an AI story," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. "So this is a broader inflation problem than just energy, meaning that we probably still have somewhat sticky inflation." Sonders added that "a lot of this skittishness" from investors is about inflation, so "something worse than expected probably doesn't sit well with the equity market." The Trump administration has made the case that inflation will come down quickly once the fighting in the Middle East settles down. However, Sonders advised against counting on that with so much damage already done to supply. "Even if there would be a quick resolution to the war, you probably wouldn't see oil prices come down to prior lows, because there's been so much disruption to production," she said. "That's not something that a switch can just be turned back on." Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis.

The May inflation numbers are due out Wednesday morning. Here's what to expect
Asia-Pacific
The Straits Times

Gold fever sends some vintage luxury watches to the melting furnace

An old luxury watch in a furnace to be melted down for gold at Hatton Garden Metals in London on June 10. LONDON – Omega’s Constellation watch has been flashed in campaigns, movies and at the Met Gala by film stars like George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, turning it into a symbol of luxury and glamour. But with gold prices near record highs struck in January, some such classic watches are being melted down as the value of their metal content outstrips their resale worth. Used models by the likes of Omega and LVMH’s TAG Heuer are most hit by the trend, according to Reuters interviews with over a dozen traders, industry experts, and investment advisers. British dealer Jon White of Gold Traders melted down an 18-carat late-1970s Constellation in excellent condition in May, one of dozens of mainstream luxury watches he has had scrapped in 2026 as demand for investment gold has risen. “Beautiful watch. But in reality, had the customer consigned that to auction, what would they have achieved?” White, who also manages an auction house, told Reuters. The gold content of the Constellation watch, one of many models produced by Swatch-owned Omega, was worth £5,750 (S$9,900), 35 per cent more than its estimated £4,000 to £4,500 auction value, White said. James Lamdin, founder of Watches of Switzerland’s second-hand unit Analog Shift, said melting was “primarily happening with contemporary pre-owned and also with older vintage watches that are not already collectable”. Spokespeople for Swatch and Rolex said they would not comment for this story. LVMH, Richemont, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet did not respond to requests for comment. Gold prices surged to a record US$5,600 an ounce in January as geopolitical concerns and trade worries pushed investors towards safe-haven precious metals. Gold now hovers around US$4,200 per ounce, almost double its 2024 average. “I find it very sad because obviously once something has been melted, it’s gone forever,” said Adrian Hailwood, a specialist in horological history. Molten gold from old jewellery, including luxury watches, being poured into a mould at Hatton Garden Metals in London on June 10.

Gold fever sends some vintage luxury watches to the melting furnace