Donald Trump's tariff campaign — 25% on Canada and Mexico, 20% on China, and the 2 April 'Liberation Day' announcements — hit global markets. Notably, India fell FIRST, having already been weak since late 2024, and recovered FIRST and most. The April series saw the Nifty move more than 10% in under a month.

It was the arrival of the new geopolitical regime — and, simultaneously, of the 'India decouples by front-running' pattern.

India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire, and the Nifty shot up about 4% — roughly 1,000 points — in a single day, from about 24,000 to 25,000, on a 2% gap-up plus another 2% intraday. Then came the anticlimax: the index spent the next six months trading in a 25,000 ± 2–3% range.

A +4% day that became half a year of nothing — the Kargil pattern in modern form, and proof that a one-day peace rally guarantees no trend.

Israel attacked Iran, and later the US attacked Iran. Each escalation produced a 300–400 point gap-down in the Nifty — and each one recovered within the same week. Meanwhile the RBI cut rates 50 bps in early June, pushing the market toward 24,200, and GST rates were cut from 22 September across a range of goods.

The Kargil lesson, thirty years on and evolved: modern India absorbs war headlines in days, not months.

The US and Israel struck Iran in Q1 2026, and FIIs fled — 'bombing the Indian stock market,' in PR Sundar's words. From a fresh all-time high of about 26,400 in the first week of January, the Nifty fell through 23,000, roughly -13%, within three months. Crude spiked from ~$50–60 to about $120 on the Iran issue before collapsing back on ceasefire news — with 8 April 2026 seeing crude fall from $120 toward $86, gold from $5,600 toward $4,000, and the Nifty up 4% in a day.

A war-driven ~13% drawdown from record highs was the first major bear leg since 2024 — with the ceasefire day as its violent mirror.

An Indo-US trade deal was announced with zero prior negotiation news. Gift Nifty indicated a ~2,000-point gap-up, and the Nifty opened more than 1,000 points higher — then came under heavy selling and closed near 25,728, the gains wiped out. A similar US-India deal-day gap-up in 2025 had faded 400–500 points within minutes.

The 2009 +20% day's negative twin: the same violent gap mechanics, the opposite ending. The biggest indicated gap-up since 2009, fully faded — proof that huge gaps can go either way.

A recurring pattern emerged where unconfirmed 'Iran agreed to ceasefire talks' headlines — appearing only on a couple of Indian television channels and nowhere on Bloomberg, Reuters, BBC or CNBC — spiked the Nifty roughly 400 points in the final 20 minutes on multiple days, including an expiry day when one far out-of-the-money call jumped from ₹5 to ₹60, a 10–15x move.

PR Sundar's conclusion was suspected manipulation via fake news. It is the modern market's darkest side — a headline, detached from any verified source, moving the index by hundreds of points.

The government hiked the Securities Transaction Tax by roughly 150%, effective 1 April 2026 — on top of a decade of increases that had already pushed options STT up about 8x since 2016. The result was immediate: Nifty futures bid-ask spreads widened from 0.5–1 point to 10–15 points, volumes collapsed, and F&O interest dried up.

Where earlier hikes had already pushed traders toward illegal 'dabba' trading, this one visibly broke the market's plumbing — the culmination of the 2004 STT story, the tax that began as a 0.1% levy and ended up strangling the market.

The Prime Minister said India faced 'one of the worst crises in the last 10 years' over foreign-exchange troubles, urging citizens to avoid foreign travel and gold purchases. The reaction was instant: the Nifty fell about 400 points on Monday and another 400 on Tuesday — about 800 points in two sessions — breaking below 24,000, and Tuesday's high of 23,757 held as resistance for eight sessions despite positive global cues.

A prime-ministerial statement crashed the market ~3% in two days. In India, the highest office's words are a market instrument.