DayStarter

Market snapshot

Equities and sectors

Nifty 50 closed at 22,603.05, around 87 points below its opening level and nearly 110 points off the day’s high, as the recovery after the RBI policy announcement faded. It had opened with an 86-point gap down at 22,690 ahead of the RBI policy outcome at 10 AM.

The index slipped towards 22,580 before recovering after the policy announcement and briefly testing 22,715 around noon. Selling increased after 12:30 PM, with Nifty touching an intraday low near 22,550 shortly after 2 PM before a rebound towards 22,640 did not last.

Nifty fell 0.76% and the Sensex 0.59% to 72,638.70, after trading between 72,468.72 and 73,018.82. The BSE 250 SmallCap rose 0.02% to 7,028.59. The Nifty 100 fell 0.77% to 23,697.75 and the BSE 150 MidCap 0.64% to 16,152.93.

Broad market

Sector performance

PSU Banks gained 1% to lead while Metals fell 2.33%, with only three of 15 sectors advancing. Media, Pharma and Healthcare remain the strongest relative performers over both 20 and 60 sessions, with Media the only sector above all four key moving averages. Nifty Realty, Auto and Consumer Durables fell around 1-2% on the day of the rate hike, after losing nearly 2-4% through the week before it.

Winners and losers

Chennai Petroleum rose 14.7% on 11 times its usual volume. Bharti Hexacom and PVR Inox also saw sharp high-volume gains. Shreeji Shipping recorded the biggest delivery spike, and NALCO was the weakest F&O stock, down 4.73%.

Honasa Consumer’s stock has risen 8% over two trading sessions after its Q2 update. Nine of the 10 small-cap stocks with the highest retail shareholding posted losses over the past year.

Commodities and currency

By 18:52 IST, MCX natural gas was up 2.1% at ₹307.40 and crude oil 1.2% higher at ₹8,736. Gold lost 1.0% to ₹1,48,617 and silver 1.6% to ₹2,23,512.

Crude oil rebounded toward $90 a barrel from five-week lows as renewed attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz kept concerns about Middle East oil supply high. The rupee fell 35 paise to ₹96.78 per dollar, close to its record low of ₹96.98. Governor Sanjay Malhotra said several measures, including the REER, suggest the rupee may be undervalued.

The 10-year government bond yield rose to a high of 7.26% from an opening level of 7.21% after the stance change, and later traded at around 7.24%. The dollar index rose above 102.4, its highest since March 2025, as higher oil prices added to inflation concerns.

Institutional flows

On 7 October, FIIs net sold ₹2,490 crore while DIIs net bought ₹4,597 crore. Foreign investors have now sold for eight straight sessions.

Call writers turned more active, pulling the put-call ratio down from 1.24 to 0.89. FIIs hold just 9.2% of index-futures positions long. Retail and HNIs are 84% long, near their most bullish positioning of the past year. Nine of the 12 largest stock-futures open-interest moves were increases in short positions.

The macro view

Monetary policy

The RBI MPC raised the repo rate by 25 bps to 5.50% and shifted its stance from neutral to ‘calibrated tightening’, citing renewed West Asia tensions and volatile crude prices. The RBI also said domestic growth remains resilient.

It was the RBI’s first rate increase in nearly four years. The MPC raised its FY27 real GDP growth forecast by 40 bps to 7.1% and its FY27 inflation outlook by 20 bps to 5.2%, and sees retail inflation peaking at 6% in the December quarter before easing to 5.6% in Q1 FY28.

Malhotra said the RBI is contemplating either a pause or a hike, and called ‘calibrated tightening’ a “milder form of tightening”; the term was last used by then governor Urjit Patel in October 2018. Yes Bank sees hikes of 100 bps in this cycle and HDFC Bank expects up to 75 bps. Kotak Neo expects a total of 75 bps including Wednesday’s move. Deputy Governor Swaminathan J said it typically takes around two quarters for hikes to be fully reflected in actual lending rates.

Banking and liquidity

• Malhotra said the liquidity surplus is likely to normalise by the end of the financial year and that a further CRR increase, not ruled out, is the RBI’s least preferred way of absorbing liquidity. Cash moving out of the banking system typically accounts for ₹3-4 trillion.
• System deposit growth has accelerated to 17% from 11-12% when the FCNR(B) scheme was announced. Bank credit growth has crossed 18%. Bajaj Finance raised fixed-deposit rates by 15-40 bps across 12-60 month tenures.
• Over 68% of floating-rate loans were linked to external benchmarks at end-June. Bank non-food credit grew 18.8% to ₹222.8 trillion till August. The weighted average lending rate on fresh loans was 8.61% in August, the highest since November 2025.
• The RBI will make account aggregators interoperable and include bank deposit data in consolidated account statements for demat holders, both by 31 December 2026, and will set up a consultative committee for money, G-sec and forex markets.
• Deputy Governor Rohit Jain said the RBI will issue an FAQ clarifying that individuals are exempt from export-declaration reporting for personal-nature contracts under the new forex rules. The RBI also removed Paytm Payments Bank from the Second Schedule of the RBI Act.

Monsoon, inflation and growth

• India received 87% of its long-period average rainfall in the 2026 monsoon, at 759.4mm, the fourth-lowest since 2001. South peninsular India received 76% of LPA, and its reservoirs were 49.15% full on 1 October against 87.82% a year ago.
• Kharif sowing stood at 111.5 million hectares as of 2 October, against 112.7 million a year earlier. IMD forecasts normal north-east monsoon rainfall of 88-112% of LPA over south peninsular India.
• August food inflation rose to 5.95%, pushing retail inflation to 4.82%. India’s net FDI rose to $7.3 billion in July 2026, taking April-July inflows to $13.4 billion.
• India’s first National Household Travel Survey, covering 492,000 households, found the share of rural women travelling over 1 km drops from 64.2% for education to 37.7% for work.

Trade and industry

• The government is vetting a proposal for a minimum export price on cotton yarn after prices rose around 60%, from about ₹250 per kg in early 2026 to nearly ₹400. Cotton output fell to 29.091 million bales in 2025-26.
• EFTA’s commitments under the India-EFTA trade pact cover 99.6% of India’s exports to the bloc, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said. India was a net importer of 3.5 million tonnes of finished steel in April-August, up 29.5%. The steel ministry is unlikely to seek new curbs.
• Venezuelan crude deliveries to India are expected to more than double to about 465,000 barrels a day in October from 196,000 in September, the highest since December 2019.
• India and the UK agreed to explore cross-border equity and bond listings via GIFT IFSC. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal met executives of Blackstone, IBM, MetLife and Estée Lauder in New York.

Energy and infrastructure

• A total of 24GWh of battery storage projects were cancelled or re-tendered during 2018-2026, over 11% of the CEA’s 208GWh target. Of 22.43GWh awarded under VGF 2.0, funding arrangements have been completed for only 5GWh.
• NTPC terminated a ₹413 crore 400MWh battery storage contract with GR Infraprojects. Battery cell prices rose 32% in January-July, and 13.47GWh of capacity was installed by end-September.
• IATA asked airlines to negotiate a longer transition timeline with Adani Airport Holdings for shifting international operations from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai.
• Lord Nicholas Stern said India spends about 5% of GDP on oil and gas purchases. NITI Aayog estimates India needs cumulative investment of about $22.7 trillion by 2070 under a net-zero scenario.

Mint, 8 October 2026; Zerodha Top Stories in India

Corporate action and earnings

Domestic headlines

Telecom and autos

Bharti Airtel raised postpaid prices by 3-11%, or ₹50 across plans, effective 8 October, its first postpaid revision in over two years. It had 30 million postpaid subscribers at end-June, 8% of its 376.5 million India mobile users. Independent analyst Parag Kar said the maximum increase in Airtel’s Arpu is likely to be about ₹4, or 1.5% of its current ₹264.

Mercedes-Benz and BMW have narrowed the gap between global and India launches to about 4-6 months from 10-12 months. BMW Group India planned 27 launches in 2026 and Mercedes 12 new models.

Deals and companies

• Dixon Technologies signed a JV agreement with Taiwan’s Gemtek to manufacture optical transceivers and other telecom products in India, with Dixon holding 60%.
• L&T received initial approval to build the main package of a 1,600MW thermal power project in Jharkhand being developed by a DVC-Coal India joint venture.
• Brookfield acquired a 10.5 million sq. ft industrial and logistics portfolio from ESR India, committing ₹4,300 crore to the acquisition and future development. The portfolio is 98% leased.
• CoreWeave will build its first India data centres as part of a venture involving the Adani Group. The first is slated to come online in mid-2028.
• Adani Energy Solutions acquired Satara Power Transmission from PFC Consulting. Swastika Infra won a ₹615 crore MSEDCL contract for power infrastructure in the Bhandup zone. BPCL, Shell and Tiki Tar formed a bitumen JV.
• Quess, TeamLease and Adecco India, which together provide about a million contract workers, are seeing demand for billing linked to output delivered. Quess said 10-15% of its clients seek some form of service linked to output delivered.
• Elon Musk alleged that Indian “oligarchs” were blocking Starlink’s launch. SpaceX’s Lauren Dreyer said Starlink has built its India operations to meet security requirements and keeps India user data within India.
• RPSG chairman Shashwat Goenka said energy, chemicals and ITeS will lead the group’s growth.

India’s alcoholic beverage market reached ₹6.18 trillion in 2025, up from ₹3.9 trillion in 2021, and alcohol-related tax collections were ₹4 trillion in FY25.

Mark to market

• Dabur expects double-digit growth in India FMCG revenue in Q2. Its stock has lost nearly 43% over two years from a September 2024 peak of ₹672 and trades at about 32 times FY27 earnings.
• Honasa Consumer expects net sales value growth in the early 30s in Q2, with Mamaearth in the high teens. The stock trades at 54 times estimated FY27 earnings.
• Sebi raised the number of privately placed debt ISINs that can mature in a year from 14 to 17 and eased listing rules for small-value debt issuers. It told a court it has shared trade logs with Jane Street.

Startups and fundraising

• Ola Electric received in-principle exchange approval for a rights issue of up to ₹1,000 crore.
• Cashfree Payments is in talks to raise $80-100 million at roughly its last valuation of about $700 million, people familiar said. Its FY26 revenue rose about 52% to ₹972 crore.
• A 0.4% merchant discount rate will apply to specified UPI merchant payments above ₹2,000, capped at ₹300 per transaction, from 15 October. Consumers will not be charged.
• Veeda Lifesciences relaunched a majority stake sale that could value it at $300-400 million, and Gemsons Precision Engineering’s promoters are seeking to sell a controlling stake at ₹1,000-1,200 crore, people familiar said.
• Wizz Financial, which draws about 60% of its business from India, plans to raise capital in 2027 and pursue an IPO in 2029. Anthropic expanded its Claude Startups programme in India, offering up to $7,000 in products and credits.

Mint, 8 October 2026; Zerodha Top Stories in India

Upcoming events

The Zerodha calendar lists no corporate actions this week; for results, dividends and corporate actions, check NSE, BSE and the Tijori App.

Global pulse

Global indices

Five of eight overseas markets rose in their latest session, led by the S&P 500 and DAX 40 (+0.6% each). Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% but is up 5.1% over five sessions.

US stocks opened lower on 7 October as rising oil prices and Treasury yields pressured equities. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.70%, its highest since 2002. The 10-year to 5.32%.

Global macro

• The average US 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose 19 bps to 7.49%, its highest in nearly three years.
• IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva urged faster action to cut debt and counter inequality, speaking in Singapore ahead of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Bangkok next week.
• Russia’s defence spending is expected to approach $199 billion this year, about 40% above the plan announced at the end of 2025, two people close to the government said.
• India is engaging Ukraine and Russia on safe passage for grain and energy through the Black Sea. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said 23 Indian seafarers were rescued after an attack on a Liberian-flagged tanker.

Global business and tech

• Uber agreed to acquire workplace catering platform ezCater for $2.3 billion in cash. EzCater generated more than $2.5 billion in gross bookings over the past year.
• Skydance, formed from Paramount’s Warner Bros. Discovery deal, will close with nearly $80 billion in debt. Under a settlement with 12 states, Paramount agreed to invest at least $1.5 billion more in domestic production over five years.
• OpenAI released 722 AI-generated mathematics papers organised into 372 groups of results, including advances related to three of the five remaining Millennium Prize Problems.
• SpaceX is reportedly negotiating to raise $40 billion of debt to buy Nvidia chips. Google’s $15 billion Finland AI infrastructure investment was halted pending environmental impact assessments.
• Temasek International CIO Rohit Sipahimalani named an unwinding of the AI trade and inflation-driven bond yields as the top market risks heading into 2027.
• Jaguar unveiled its Type 01 EV, expected to start at $130,500 in the US, where EV sales this year are down almost 50% from 2025.
• Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on producing a single mirror image of chiral molecules.

Zerodha Global Markets and Top Stories Globally; Mint Global pages, 8 October 2026

Management chatter

Verbatim quotes from named individuals, as published by Zerodha and Mint.

Zerodha; Mint

Repo at 5.50%: The RBI’s First Hike in Nearly Four Years

The Monetary Policy Committee raised the repo rate by 25 basis points and moved its stance to “calibrated tightening”. This recap covers the decision, the reasons the RBI gave, the new projections, the path that led here, and how markets and banks responded.

The decision

On Wednesday, 7 October, the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to raise the repo rate by 25 basis points, from 5.25% to 5.50%, at the end of its 63rd meeting, held from 5 to 7 October and chaired by Governor Sanjay Malhotra, who began his address at 10:07 AM. The standing deposit facility rate moves to 5.25%. The marginal standing facility rate and bank rate to 5.75%. The six-member committee comprises Malhotra, Saugata Bhattacharya, Poonam Gupta, Indranil Bhattacharyya, Dr. Nagesh Kumar and Prof. Ram Singh.

The committee also changed its stance from neutral to “calibrated tightening”. Two members, Dr. Nagesh Kumar and Prof. Ram Singh, wanted the stance kept at neutral. The RBI said rate cuts are “off the table in the near term”, and that the next move can only be a hike or a pause. Nearly 60% of economists in a Reuters poll had expected a 25 bps hike.

Why the RBI moved

CPI inflation rose to 4.8% in August from 4.5% in July. The resolution and the Governor’s statement cited energy and commodity prices that remain high, with pass-through continuing. The West Asia conflict and volatile crude. A deficient southwest monsoon with strong El Niño conditions, a risk to rabi crops and rural demand. The US Federal Reserve’s 25 bps hike on 16 September, which took its target range to 3.75-4%. Global bond yields at record highs. And strong growth in money and credit. The Governor also said capital flow measures announced in the June 2026 policy have helped inflows, and that foreign exchange reserves remain adequate.

The new projections

The RBI expects headline CPI inflation to “average almost 5.8 per cent in the next three quarters”, and projects core inflation at 4.4% for FY27. It raised its FY27 growth projection after real GDP grew 7.8% in the first quarter, which it described as “higher than expected”. Against the August policy, the FY27 inflation projection is 20 bps higher and the growth projection 40 bps higher.

How we got here

Reuters called Wednesday’s move “the first rise in nearly four years”. The previous hike came on 8 February 2023, when the repo rate went up 25 bps to 6.50%, ending a cycle that added 250 bps from May 2022. Easing began on 7 February 2025 with the first cut in nearly five years, and four cuts in 2025 lowered the rate by 125 bps in total. The repo was then held at 5.25% at the February, April, June and August 2026 meetings.

Markets and banks

The Sensex closed at 72,638.70, down 0.59%. The Nifty at 22,603.05, down 0.76%, with metal stocks the biggest drag; Kotak Mahindra Bank (+1.88%) and ICICI Bank (+1.09%) were among the top Nifty gainers. The 10-year government bond yield closed at 7.24%, up from 7.19%, its highest since 13 December 2023. The rupee closed at 96.78 per dollar against a previous close of 96.43, after touching an intraday low of 96.86. Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Investments, said “the domestic market reacted more sharply to the shift in policy stance from neutral to calibrated tightening”.

Several banks raised external-benchmark lending rates by 25 bps. Punjab National Bank raised its repo-linked lending rate to 8.35% from 8.10%, effective 8 October, leaving MCLR unchanged. Bank of Baroda raised its benchmark lending rate to 8.15% from 7.90% and Indian Bank to 8.20% from 7.95%. Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank moved theirs to 8.35% and Tamilnad Mercantile Bank its repo-linked rate to 8.50% from 8.25%.

Beyond the rate

The policy package made NBFC account aggregators interoperable and allowed SEBI-regulated depositories to include bank deposit data in the Consolidated Account Statement, both by 31 December 2026, and set up a Technical Consultative Committee for Financial Markets. No CRR change was announced; Malhotra called a CRR hike the “least preferred” option. System liquidity has averaged a daily surplus of ₹5.9 lakh crore since the last meeting. The RBI announced a ₹2 lakh crore 29-day variable rate reverse repo auction for 8 October.

What comes next

Minutes of the meeting are due on 21 October. The next MPC meeting is scheduled for 2-4 December. Malhotra described the new stance as a “milder form of tightening, (which is) more data dependent than pre-determined.”

Sources for this feature

Primary: RBI, Monetary Policy Statement 2026-27, Resolution of the Monetary Policy Committee, 5-7 October 2026 (PR 2026-2027/1264); RBI, Governor’s Statement (7 Oct 2026); RBI, Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies (7 Oct 2026); RBI, 29-day VRRR auction press release (7 Oct 2026); RBI, MPC Resolution, 3-5 August 2026 (PR 2026-2027/809); US Federal Reserve, FOMC statement (16 Sep 2026).

Reaction and markets: Reuters via Yahoo Finance, “India joins global rate-tightening wave with first hike in nearly 4 years” (7 Oct 2026); Business Standard, “High liquidity no concern for NBFC asset quality, says RBI Governor”, “Govt bond yields near three-year high after RBI’s hawkish policy shift” and “Rupee closes at 96.78 per dollar as RBI policy fails to boost sentiment” (7 Oct 2026); Upstox, RBI MPC October 2026 live updates (7 Oct 2026); Business Today, “Sensex, Nifty recovery attempt falters after RBI rate hike”, rupee report (7 Oct 2026) and “Loans get costlier: PNB, BOB others hike rates” (8 Oct 2026); HDFC Sky, market close report (7 Oct 2026); PTI via Daily Excelsior (7 Oct 2026).

Rate history: Outlook Business, “RBI Hikes Repo Rate By 25 Bps To 6.50%” (8 Feb 2023) and June 2025 rate-cut report; Business Standard, rate-cut reports (7 Feb 2025, 9 Apr 2025, 5 Dec 2025); HDFC Sky, CRR cut report (Jun 2025); HDFC Mutual Fund, Monetary Policy Review (Jun 2026).

At a glance

• The RBI raised the repo rate by 25 bps to 5.50% and shifted its stance to calibrated tightening, its first hike in nearly four years.
• Nifty fell 0.76% to 22,603.05 and the Sensex 0.59% to 72,638.70, with only three of 15 sectors advancing.
• PSU Banks gained 1% to lead while Metals fell 2.33%, and Chennai Petroleum rose 14.7% on 11 times its usual volume.
• FIIs net sold ₹2,490 crore while DIIs net bought ₹4,597 crore; foreign investors have now sold for eight straight sessions.
• The rupee fell 35 paise to ₹96.78 per dollar and the 10-year government bond yield rose after the stance change.
• The RBI raised its FY27 growth forecast to 7.1% and inflation forecast to 5.2%, seeing inflation peaking at 6% in the December quarter.
• Bharti Airtel raised postpaid prices by 3-11%, its first postpaid revision in over two years.
• Five of eight overseas markets rose, led by the S&P 500 and DAX 40, while the 30-year US Treasury yield climbed to 5.70%.

Closing

DayStarter by Devraj compiles reported facts from the Zerodha AfterMarket Report, Mint and the public sources named above. It is for information only and is not investment advice.