Global markets rallied and oil slid after fresh diplomatic momentum raised prospects of a US‑Iran agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, easing a three‑month energy shock that has pushed benchmark crude sharply higher. Brent fell more than 5% on May 25–26 to trade around $97–98 a barrel and US WTI near $91, while some Asian trade data showed a handful of LNG tankers and a supertanker leaving the Gulf. The dollar eased (DXY near 99) and major currencies gained as risk appetite improved, even as renewed US strikes on Iranian targets in southern Iran briefly pushed oil back up. Iran’s negotiators were reported in Doha for talks and US officials said progress had been made on a memorandum of understanding, but key issues and a transition timeline for clearing mines and restoring flows remain unresolved. Markets and analysts warned that normalising physical oil flows, repairing damaged facilities and rebuilding inventories will take months, keeping inflation and central bank policy risks elevated.

Tata Sons convened its board on May 26, 2026, for a closely watched meeting dominated by concerns over loss-making new businesses and an intensifying governance debate. Reports from May 25–26 say individual group companies — notably Tata Digital, Air India and the group's electronics ventures — were to make presentations on performance and turnaround plans after unlisted units reported combined losses of ₹10,905 crore in FY25, a figure media estimates may widen to about ₹29,000 crore for the following year. The meeting sits against a backdrop of visible friction between Tata Trusts’ leadership and chairman N. Chandrasekaran: Noel Tata has expressed worries about mounting losses and is said to be reluctant to take Tata Sons public, while other trustees reportedly favour a listing. Regulatory pressure stems from the RBI’s classification of Tata Sons as an upper-layer NBFC and a subsequent “look-through” approach that strengthens the case for mandatory listing. Corporate governance advisory InGovern has urged a market listing to improve transparency. Reports differ on whether Chandrasekaran’s reappointment would be formally addressed, but the session is widely seen as a test of the group’s power balance and strategy.

Microsoft has begun cancelling most internal licences for Anthropic’s Claude Code and is directing engineers to migrate to GitHub Copilot CLI by June 30, sources said, a reversal six months after broad internal rollout. The move affects the Experiences & Devices division, which builds Windows, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams and Surface. Reported motives include toolchain unification and mounting token-based bills: heavy, agentic use of coding assistants drives far higher consumption than traditional per-seat pricing anticipates. Uber’s CTO has similarly said the company exhausted its full 2026 AI coding budget in four months. Industry voices and analysts — including Nvidia and Gartner — warn that agentic workflows can outpace falling per-token costs, and that many AI infrastructure projects fail to meet business cases. Microsoft’s broader commercial ties with Anthropic (the Foundry investment and Azure compute commitments) remain intact, but the internal licence pullback highlights growing tension between AI adoption and enterprise economics.

Indian fintech Pine Labs reported a consolidated net profit of ₹59.36 crore ($6.2 million) for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, reversing a year-earlier loss of ₹28.91 crore, as digital payments demand and merchant adoption strengthened. Quarterly revenue from operations rose 17% year-on-year to about ₹700.5 crore, while full-year revenue grew to ₹2,711 crore and Pine Labs posted its first full-year profit of ₹113 crore (₹1.13 billion). Platform gross transaction value (GTV) expanded roughly 50% in the financial year, leaving scope for further monetisation, the company said. Pine Labs now operates in about 20-22 countries, with international revenue exceeding ₹400 crore (around 15% of sales). Management highlighted growth in its devices segment, new oil-marketing contracts, deeper AI usage (1.3 million lines of code handled, 89% agentic contribution and over 46,000 tickets resolved), and said geopolitical tensions in the Middle East had a mild impact on some airline volumes and UAE rollouts. Shares rose over 4% after results, while Morgan Stanley maintained an equal-weight rating and a target implying about 67% upside.

Kent RO Systems, an Indian water-purifier maker, has postponed plans to list on the stock market, its chairman Mahesh Gupta told Reuters on May 26, 2026. The company had secured regulatory clearance last June for an offer for sale by existing shareholders but ruled out an initial public offering for at least a year, saying heightened market volatility driven by the Iran/West Asia conflict made it an unsuitable time to list. Kent, which imports about 15% of its raw materials, has raised prices roughly 2% since the conflict began and said higher transportation, metals and plastics costs could pinch profits. The company reported revenue of approximately 14 billion rupees in fiscal 2026 (about $147 million) and expects around 15% growth in fiscal 2027, citing low nationwide adoption of water purifiers and widespread groundwater contamination. Gupta said the company faces no immediate pressure to go public as it has no foreign shareholders, but will reassess listing plans once conditions stabilise.