Shares of Titan Company, Kalyan Jewellers India, Senco Gold, Sky Gold and Diamonds, PC Jewellers and other gold and jewellery stocks crashed on Monday morning after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to postpone gold purchases among other measures to save foreign exchange due to the West Asia crisis.
Titan's share price declined over 7% to hit a low of Rs 4,153 while Kalyan Jewellers, Sky Gold and Senco Gold tanked more than 10% each on the exchanges. This comes as a big setback for investors in gold & jewellery stocks who were anticipating a recovery after the dismal festive season of 2025.
Meanwhile, benchmark indices - BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 - were down more than 1% each on Monday morning. The Sensex fell about 1,100 points to hit an intraday low of 76,236.70.
Amid the foreign exchange crisis, PM Modi urged citizens to postpone gold purchases and foreign travel for a year to conserve reserves. "We have to save foreign exchange by any means," he emphasised, noting that the West Asia conflict has sharply driven up petrol and fertiliser prices.
He added that supply chain disruptions are intensifying challenges, even as the government implements various measures to mitigate them.
VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments said that market will face pressure from two headwinds today. One, the expected resolution of the West Asia crisis has again slipped away following President Trump’s rejection of Iran’s letter. Consequently Brent crude has again spiked to $105 potentially aggravating the current account deficit.
“Two, PM Modi’s appeal to the nation to curb the consumption of petrol/diesel, gold, chemical fertilisers and edible oil and refrain from avoidable foreign travel is a crisis management response to the current account deficit problem caused by high crude prices. This call for austerity has a slightly negative implication for economic growth in FY27. Particularly, the industries related to the austerity call like petroleum, chemical fertilisers, gold, air travel, hotel and related sectors will be sentimentally impacted,” added Vijayakumar.
India's forex reserves fell by $7.794 billion to $690.693 billion during the week ended May 1, the RBI said on Friday. In the previous reporting week ended April 24, the overall reserves had declined by $4.82 billion to $698.487 billion.
The kitty had expanded to an all-time high of £728.494 billion during the week ended February 27 this year before the beginning of the West Asia crisis, which led to several weeks of a drop as the rupee came under pressure and the RBI had to intervene in the forex market through dollar sales.
India, the world's second-largest consumer of gold, imported an average of 60 tonnes of the precious metal every month during FY26, translating into a monthly import bill of nearly $6 billion, shows official data.