How Brent Crude Oil Price Movements Shape Equity Returns: A Comparative Analysis of Oil Sector Stocks in India and the United States

Eight proxies of major petroleum-related equities (Gabriel 4 Indian-traded companies (NSE/BSE: ONGC, Reliance, IOC, BPCL) and four US-traded ones (NYSE/ DJIA/S+P500, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental) are evaluated regarding their sensitivity to the Brent changes daily returns in 30 pre-conflict years between January 19 and February 27, 2026. The armed conflict began on February 28, 2026, which was on a Saturday so the equity market reactions were observed in seven further trading sessions between the 2nd and the 10th of March 2026. The coefficient of fit (resulted in Ordinary Least Squares) of beta (which are actually events-study based) within the range [0 -30, 0 +180] are then used to project forward-looking from the future of Brent costs taking two quarters into consideration. None of the estimated models are statistically significant, but those that are lowest in control (i.e. IOC) obtain a negative coefficient ( -0.374; p = 0.082) which supports commodity attributed to the practice of margin suppression attributable to regime of government controlledretail fuel prices in India. ExxonMobil is the US company that has the largest positive sensitivity ( = 0.400 ). Directional predictions are supported by post-conflict price developments; Brent is up +29.5% up to March 4, US upstream oriented holdings are up 5 to 7 and Indian downstream refining equities are down 3 to 5.