Hormuz attack, Wall Street's 7-week streak, BRICS' quiet de-dollarisation push shape global mood

An Indian vessel sunk in Omani waters, a 13-CEO American delegation in Beijing, a Wall Street on its longest winning streak in months, and a BRICS bloc quietly building an alternative to the US dollar — May 14 is such a day where multiple threads are pulling the global order in different directions at once.

An Indian vessel and a chokepoint under strain

During the wee hours on Wednesday, and Indian vessel named MSV Haji Ali caught fire and sank in Omani waters near Limah off Oman's northern coast. The vessel, travelling from Somalia to Sharjah carrying livestock, was struck by what preliminary reports describe as a drone or missile-like projectile. All 14 Indian crew members were rescued safely by the Omani Coast Guard and brought to Dibba Port.

India's Ministry of External Affairs condemned the attack in unambiguous terms. In an official statement, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: "The attack on an Indian-flagged ship off the coast of Oman yesterday is unacceptable, and we deplore the fact that commercial shipping and civilian mariners continue to be targeted." The MEA added that India "reiterates that targeting commercial shipping and endangering innocent civilian crew members, or otherwise impeding freedom of navigation and commerce, should be avoided." The statement did not name the party responsible. Omani authorities are investigating.

No official response from Iran specifically addressing the MSV Haji Ali attack was issued as of Thursday evening. The attack happened even as Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi was in New Delhi for the BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting.

On Thursday, the Indian government also confirmed that two LPG carriers successfully cleared the Strait of Hormuz, taking the cumulative total of India-bound vessels to safely navigate it since the crisis began to 13.

Modi, BRICS and a pointed message

PM Modi met foreign ministers and heads of delegation of BRICS countries on the sidelines of the Foreign Ministers' meeting, including Russian FM Sergey Lavrov and Iranian FM Araghchi. After the interactions, the Prime Minister posted on X: "Glad to interact with Foreign Ministers and Heads of Delegation of BRICS countries. BRICS has emerged as an important platform for advancing cooperation among emerging economies and giving voice to the aspirations of the Global South. Under India's Chairmanship this year, we will work together to strengthen multilateralism, promote sustainable development, enhance economic resilience and build a more inclusive world order."

Chairing the foreign ministers' meeting, EAM Jaishankar said, "We meet at a time of considerable flux in international relations. Ongoing conflicts, economic uncertainties, and challenges in trade, technology, and climate are shaping the global landscape. There is a growing expectation, particularly from emerging markets and developing countries, that BRICS will play a constructive and stabilizing role." On Palestine, Jaishankar reiterated that India supports a two-state solution. On the Iran conflict, India stayed consistent with its position — dialogue and diplomacy, no explicit condemnation of any party.

Trump in Beijing: 13 CEOs, Boeing jets and Hormuz

President Trump arrived in Beijing on May 13 with at least 12–13 of America's top business executives — including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, and chiefs from Apple, BlackRock, Boeing and Goldman Sachs. The biggest headline from the Trump-Xi meeting: China agreed to purchase 200 Boeing jets. More important for global energy markets, Trump said Xi had offered to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz fully to international shipping, and vowed not to arm Iran.

Wall Street — six weeks and counting toward seven

The S&P 500 going into this week had logged six straight weeks of gains — its longest weekly winning streak since October 2024 — rising from corrective lows to an all-time high of 7,474 reached this week. The Nasdaq has run even harder, logging a 4.5% gain in the week ending May 9 alone, with the index closing at 26,247 on May 8 on the back of AI-driven tech earnings and a strong US jobs report. If markets close in the green through Friday, May 16, it would confirm a seventh straight weekly gain. Key drivers have been AI enthusiasm, strong corporate earnings, declining Treasury yields, and growing optimism that the US-China trade relationship is stabilising. The S&P 500 now sits roughly 18% above its April 2025 lows.

Indian markets yet to figure out its direction

While Wall Street has been on a steady upward march, Indian markets have had a different experience — volatile, directionless in stretches, and deeply divided between foreign and domestic institutional behaviour.

On Thursday, Sensex jumped 789.74 points — or 1.06% — to close at 75,398.72, while the Nifty 50 rose 277 points or 1.18% to settle at 23,689.60. Nifty Bank gained 672.80 points or 1.26% to close at 54,128.95. The rally was driven by optimism around the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing and a broader improvement in Asian risk sentiment.

But Thursday's gains came at the end of a bruising couple of weeks. On May 12, Sensex had plunged 1,456 points to 74,559 — its worst single-day fall in weeks — as rising crude oil prices, rupee weakness, and FII selling hit simultaneously. On May 11, markets fell another 1.49% on the Nifty and 1.70% on the Sensex.

The common thread running through all of it has been crude oil — every escalation in the Strait of Hormuz pushes Brent higher, which immediately puts pressure on India's import bill, the rupee and inflation expectations, and triggers risk-off selling in equities.

BRICS' quiet march toward de-dollarisation

While the headlines are dominated by war and summits, a slower and arguably more consequential shift is underway in the financial architecture BRICS is building. The de-dollarisation push has moved from political declaration into actual implementation — quietly, in four parallel tracks.

The first is BRICS Pay — a cross-border payment network allowing bilateral trade settlement in member currencies, bypassing SWIFT and dollar correspondent banking. The second is the BRICS Unit — a pilot trade-settlement instrument launched October 31, 2025, backed 40% by gold and 60% by BRICS currencies, drawing on the bloc's collective gold reserves of over 6,000 tonnes. Third, and most ambitious: the RBI has formally proposed linking the digital currencies of all BRICS nations — India's digital rupee, China's e-CNY, Russia's digital ruble and Brazil's PIX system — into a unified CBDC interoperability bridge for direct bilateral settlement. This is on the formal agenda for the 18th BRICS Summit, scheduled for September 12–13, 2026, in New Delhi. The fourth track: the New Development Bank progressively disbursing project loans in local currencies rather than dollars.

The necessary caveat: the dollar's structural hegempny in trade invoicing, global reserves and debt markets is not something that shifts in years. A fully functioning alternative to the dollar system is, at minimum, decades away, if achievable at all. India's own position has remained calibrated — building payment resilience and alternative settlement mechanisms, not confronting the dollar head-on. What is different in 2026 is that the conversation has shifted from "should we do this" to "here is how we are doing it."

The war at day 74

The US-Iran conflict is now on its 74th day. A ceasefire exists on paper but has not held cleanly. Iran has been allowing select vessels through the Strait under its own protocols while obstructing or seizing others. Hezbollah launched a drone strike near the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli air operations continued in southern Lebanon. Israeli and Lebanese delegations arrived at the US State Department for fresh ceasefire talks. Trump's Treasury Secretary called the naval blockade of Iranian ports a "resounding success." Iran's Araghchi, while in New Delhi, appealed to BRICS nations to condemn what he called US-Israeli "unlawful aggression." Nobody at BRICS publicly obliged.

India VIX dropped over 4% on Thursday even as Brent hovered around $103-106 a barrel, indicating a market swinging with geopolitical headlines in a world moving less toward resolution and more toward managed tension.