New Delhi, July 13 -- India's stock market recovery, a steady if slow incline, was rudely interrupted last week by the word "over" used by US President Donald Trump to describe America's truce memo with Iran. Both the Nifty-50 index and BSE Sensex fell by more than 2% after that news came in. Barring South Korea's Kospi, which suffered a tech sell-off, no major market fared worse.

American stocks were hit the least, although Trump had softened his words by the time trading began; the industrial-heavy Dow lost a bit over 1% and the S&P-500 less than a third of that, while the tech-filled Nasdaq held firm. Indian equity assets have been rattled more than others by war shudders in other recent episodes too. It seems like a pattern within a ...