DayStarter

The day at a glance

Market snapshot

Equities and sectors

The Nifty 50 opened 83 points higher at 23,202 ahead of the FOMC meeting. It fell to around 23,120 within the first half hour, recovered to around 23,280 near 1 PM, and closed at 23,217.60, up 0.43%. The session range was 23,116 to 23,285, and the close was around 16 points above the opening level.

The BSE Sensex closed at 74,336.45, up 0.45% from 74,003.82. It traded between 73,981.33 and 74,505.86 during the day.

Banking stocks were stronger. Nifty Bank rose 0.9%, PSU Bank rose 1.4%, and Private Bank rose 0.8%.

Zerodha's market mood reading stood at 30 out of 100, which it classified as leaning bearish. The components were: Trend 22, Breadth 33, Participation 49, New highs versus lows 0, Low stress 30, and Foreign flows 46.

The Nifty 50 closed 5.29% below its 200-day moving average, compared with a 5.75% gap a day earlier. The 200-DMA was around 24,530 on 15 September. The index has also traded below its 200-day exponential moving average for 22 sessions and is 5.12% below it.

Sector performance

FMCG led the 15 sectors, up 1.6%, while IT fell the most, down 1.6%. None of the 15 sectors traded above all four trend lines, the 20, 50, 100 and 200-DMAs, and weighted trend breadth stood at 20 out of 100. Consumer Durables, Healthcare, Media and Pharma remained above their 100-day and 200-day moving averages.

Relative to the Nifty 500, Private Bank led over the past 20 sessions by 4 percentage points, while FMCG showed the strongest improvement in momentum. Over 60 sessions, Pharma stood at +9 points and IT at +8 points relative to the Nifty 500.

Winners and losers: F&O stocks

Among F&O stocks, Patanjali Foods led the gainers, up 7.4%, while Premier Energies fell the most, down 4.9%.

Winners and losers: non-F&O stocks

Among non-F&O stocks, Vardhman Textiles rose 5.5% and Tata Investment Corp fell 5.2%.

Commodities and currency

Among MCX futures, silver rose 1.38% and gold, copper, aluminium, zinc and natural gas edged higher, while crude oil fell 2.30%.

• Brent crude fell 0.5% to $108.16 a barrel, while WTI slipped to $104.63. The fall came after reports that Saudi Arabia was offering additional crude cargoes through Oman. European diesel prices remained near record highs.
• In Delhi's spot market, gold rose by ₹1,200 to ₹1.55 lakh per 10 grams, ending a three-session losing streak. Silver rose by ₹7,400 to ₹2.42 lakh per kg.
• The rupee was quoted at ₹95.95 per US dollar. The euro was at ₹110.72 and the pound at ₹129.23. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.04% on 15 September, its highest level since 2007, before easing slightly.
• India's average crude oil basket price was around $83 to $90 a barrel between June and August. It rose to $109.80 a barrel up to 14 September.

Institutional flows

FIIs sold a net ₹2,033 crore on 16 September, while DIIs bought a net ₹3,908 crore. Over the latest five sessions, FIIs sold ₹6,963 crore and DIIs bought ₹11,097 crore.

The macro view

Inflation and monetary policy

India's headline retail inflation rose to 4.8% in August. Food inflation reached 6.0%, while core inflation was 4.3%. Core inflation excluding gold and silver was lower at 3.1%. Headline CPI rose 0.7% month-on-month in August. Since the start of the Iran war, prices have risen by an average of 0.6% each month, and headline inflation moved above the RBI's 4% medium-term target in June.

Fuel-related inflation was also elevated. Petrol inflation was around 7.5%, diesel 8.4%, LPG 5.3%, and solid fuels 7.8%. Sugar inflation rose sharply to 24.2% in August. Rainfall was 15% below normal, and Q1 FY27 GDP growth was 7.8%.

Mint's scenario analysis showed that if monthly price momentum stays at 0.5%, headline inflation could reach 6% by October-November and food inflation could move above 8%. Using the five-year average monthly momentum, headline inflation would reach 5.5% and food inflation 7.8% by October.

Deutsche Bank expects CPI inflation to remain above 6% through October-December 2026 and projects 100 basis points of cumulative RBI rate hikes through June 2027, starting in October. ICRA's Aditi Nayar said an expected hike could be brought forward to October 2026 from December 2026 if crude oil prices remain high. RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said, “even core excluding precious metals is expected to converge to core inflation in the last quarter of this financial year”.

Liquidity

The RBI absorbed ₹2.90 lakh crore through two variable rate reverse repo auctions. It absorbed ₹2.50 lakh crore in the first auction against bids of ₹3.17 lakh crore. The second auction absorbed ₹40,302 crore against a notified amount of ₹1 lakh crore. Both auctions cleared at 5.24%.

The banking system still had an estimated liquidity surplus of around ₹9.85 trillion as of Tuesday. The RBI has also announced open-market sales of ₹1 trillion of government securities in three tranches, starting with a ₹50,000 crore sale on Thursday.

Policy and regulation

Several domestic policy and regulatory changes were announced or debated:

• EPFO wage ceiling: The Union Cabinet raised the mandatory wage ceiling to ₹25,000 a month from ₹15,000, effective 17 September. This is the first revision in 12 years and is expected to bring more than 5.1 million additional employees under EPFO coverage. EPFO currently has 79.8 million contributing members across 768,000 establishments.
• UPI MDR: From 15 October, a 0.4% merchant discount rate will apply to P2M payments above ₹2,000, capped at ₹300 for payments of ₹75,000 and above. Railways, telecom, insurance, fuel, utilities, education fees and agricultural inputs will face a flat ₹5 charge. Mutual funds, securities and stockbrokers will face a 0.02% charge capped at ₹300. P2P payments, AutoPay mandates and small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month through QR codes remain exempt.
• UPI scale: The finance ministry expects only 4% of total UPI transactions to qualify for MDR. Transactions above ₹2,000 account for about 4% of P2M volume but roughly 67% of P2M value. UPI processed about 24,162 crore transactions worth around ₹314 lakh crore in FY26.
• Legal challenge to MDR: Advocate Anjan Datta filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking to quash the MDR framework. Petrol dealers' associations have sought exemption from the ₹5 charge, while the BSE Brokers' Forum has approached Sebi over the 0.02% levy.
• Gold hallmarking: BIS raised gold hallmarking charges to ₹75 per article from ₹45 with immediate effect. Silver charges remain at ₹35. Kalyan Jewellers and PC Jeweller fell around 3% to 5%, while Lalithaa Jewellery Mart hit its 5% lower circuit.
• Cryptocurrency policy: The finance ministry told the standing committee on finance that it has ruled out a regulatory regime for cryptocurrency and will instead push the e-Rupee. KYC-verified crypto accounts rose to around 39.3 million by May 2026, while estimated holdings fell to about ₹20,436 crore from ₹34,000 crore in April 2025.
• Income-tax reassessment: The Supreme Court agreed to urgently hear the Centre's challenge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling of 10 September that struck down Section 147A of the Income-Tax Act on reassessment notices. The hearing is listed for Friday.
• Closing auction session: Sebi temporarily allowed arbitrage funds to hold unhedged positions of up to 1% of AUM to improve participation in the closing auction session. CAS trade volumes rose 21.6% to 31.5 million between 3 August and 15 September, while transaction value rose 37.2% to ₹1,751.46 crore.
• Broker capital rules: Stockbrokers objected to Sebi's proposed variable net worth rule. The proposal would set the capital cushion at 10% of clients' average credit balance over six months, plus ₹50 lakh for every 50,000 active clients.
• Tax policy: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged industry and tax professionals to go beyond demands for lower taxes and provide evidence-backed ideas to improve the tax system.
• Hospital markups: A Maharashtra FDA survey found private hospital markups of up to 2,841% on surgical consumables. One example was an IV set purchased at ₹11.05 and billed at ₹325. AiMeD, which represents 1,000 companies, backed a national pricing overhaul. India's medical devices market is valued at $18 billion.

Trade and external sector

• New Zealand's Parliament passed the India free trade agreement by 93 votes to 29. Officials indicated that it could become operational in the second half of October. On day one, 57% of New Zealand's exports to India will become duty-free. India will liberalise 70% of tariff lines, covering about 95% of trade value. New Zealand also committed to facilitate $20 billion of investment into India over 15 years.
• India approved imports of 642 UK cars under the India-UK CETA tariff-rate quota, 63 days after the agreement came into force on 15 July.
• The Directorate General of Foreign Trade waived RCMC requirements for exports of up to ₹3 lakh FOB. Between FY22 and FY26, consignments worth up to $3,000 accounted for 43% of shipping bills but only 0.86% of export value.
• NITI Aayog's Trade Watch showed Tanzania and South Africa entering India's top ten export destinations in the June quarter, replacing Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Copper imports more than tripled to $11.8 billion in 2025.
• CBIC outlined five priorities to expand the Authorised Economic Operator framework, including better use of technology, wider MSME access and stronger inter-agency coordination.

Labour, energy and infrastructure

• India's unemployment rate was 5% in August, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey bulletin.
• BARC is in talks with NTPC, Adani Group, Reliance Industries and L&T to develop the 300 MW Bharat Small Modular Reactor through a special purpose vehicle. The targeted capital cost is ₹30 crore per MW, and BARC could deploy up to 30 GW of these reactors. India's installed nuclear capacity is 8.78 GW, with targets of 22.48 GW by 2030 and 100 GW by 2047.
• Delhi ranked first in NITI Aayog's India Electric Mobility Index 2025 with 84 points. Maharashtra ranked second with 78 and Karnataka third with 73.

Corporate action and earnings

Conglomerates and governance

Tata Sons

The Tata Sons board meets on 17 September. There is a split between Noel Tata, representing majority shareholder Tata Trusts, and chairman N. Chandrasekaran and the board over avoiding a public listing and reassessing the chairman's tenure. It is the first board meeting since Chandrasekaran decided not to seek another term after his current term ends on 20 February, and it comes less than a week after the RBI ordered the holding company to list. Tata Trusts owns 65.9% of Tata Sons.

Ola Electric and Krutrim

Ola Electric's payments to Krutrim SI Designs, the AI company owned by chairman Bhavish Aggarwal, nearly quadrupled to ₹100 crore last year. This included ₹54 crore for services, up from ₹26 crore, and a ₹46 crore advance. Ola Electric's overall expenses nearly halved to ₹3,245 crore. A company spokesperson said the transactions were at arm's length.

Deals, private equity and startups

• EQT Group: EQT plans to invest about $50 billion in India over four years. Around $10 billion is already committed through data-centre platform EdgeConneX, another $20 billion is expected by 2030, and $10 billion to $15 billion is planned through private equity and ancillary businesses. EQT has deployed about $26 billion across 30 India investments since 1998, including around $7 billion in the past three years.
• L Catterton: L Catterton will invest in South Indian restaurant group Nandhana Foods. The deal is estimated at around $30 million, or ₹288 crore, for a minority stake at a valuation of about ₹2,000 crore.
• Dragon Funds: MUFG-backed Dragon Funds plans a second fund with a $600 million corpus and expects to start raising it in 2027. Around $400 million of its roughly $500 million first fund has already been deployed across eight companies.
• Spacetech: Indian spacetech startups have raised $331 million so far in 2026, compared with $210 million in all of 2025. Deal count fell to 37 from 69. Sisir Radar is seeking $20 million, PierSight $20 million to $25 million, and Sanyark Space $10 million.
• Godavari Biorefineries: Shares rose sharply after the company secured a patent from the Chinese Patent Office for a novel antiviral molecule.

Primary market

NSE's IPO opens on 17 September at a price band of ₹1,700 to ₹1,785 after raising ₹6,746.18 crore from anchor investors on 16 September. The feature below examines the offer in detail.

Hero Motors' IPO was subscribed 1.38 times on the first day. Retail subscription was 2.23 times, non-institutional subscription 1.25 times, and QIB subscription 1%. The ₹1,000 crore issue includes a ₹600 crore fresh issue and a ₹400 crore offer for sale. The price band is ₹79 to ₹84, the issue closes on Friday, and the company raised nearly ₹300 crore from anchor investors.

Sector watch

Smartphones

Smartphone volumes in the July-September quarter are projected to fall 25% to around 36 million units from 48 million, which would be the weakest quarter since September 2016. Apple increased the iPhone 17 price by 20% to ₹99,900 and the iPhone 16 price by 12.5% to ₹89,900.

Pharma

Indian pharmaceutical market revenue grew 13% year-on-year to ₹24,800 crore in August, while volumes rose only 0.6%. Dr Reddy's grew 22%, Ajanta and Glenmark 20% each, and Sun Pharma 14%. GLP-1 moving annual total revenue reached ₹1,680 crore, compared with ₹300 crore in August 2025.

Happy Forgings

The company had an order book of nearly ₹950 crore, with around 60% linked to exports. Q1 FY27 volumes rose 23% and revenue 27% year-on-year. EBITDA margin increased 280 basis points to 31.3%. The stock trades at 43 times FY28 earnings.

Banks and UPI MDR

Officials at four state-run banks said mid-sized public-sector banks could add around ₹70 crore to ₹100 crore each to quarterly revenue from the new UPI MDR, while larger peers could earn nearly three times that amount.

Tokenised bonds

REC raised ₹500 crore at 7.30%, maturing on 31 May 2028. L&T raised ₹500 crore at 7.40% for three years, and IIFL Finance raised ₹25 crore. These bonds cannot be sold for three months.

Semiconductors

Cadence expects Tata Electronics' Dholera fab, due in 2028, to increase semiconductor design activity in India. Cadence has supported 106 startups. Netrasemi has raised ₹125 crore, while Mindgrove expects its first revenue this financial year.

Samsung India

The company expects robust double-digit growth in the second half of 2026, citing trends seen during Onam and Independence Day sales.

Upcoming events

Corporate actions, dividends and the earnings calendar were not published in today's source documents. For record dates, dividends, splits and results schedules, refer to the NSE and BSE corporate announcement pages or the Tijori App.

Global pulse

Global indices

World markets were mostly higher. The Shanghai Composite led, up 0.7%, followed by the Nasdaq 100 at +0.6% and the FTSE 100 at +0.3%. The Dow 30 was the only decliner, down 0.3%.

Rates and central banks

• Federal Reserve: The Federal Reserve was expected to raise rates by 25 basis points to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, which would be its first increase since 2023. Inflation remained above the Fed's 2% target, while oil and energy prices had risen after the Iran war.
• United Kingdom: UK inflation rose to 3.1% year-on-year in August from 2.9% in July, the highest level in five months. Transport inflation increased to 4.6% from 3.6%.

Trade and geopolitics

• US tariff bill: The US House advanced a bill that would allow President Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from India, China and other major buyers of Russian oil and gas, while also expanding sanctions on Russia and Iran.
• US-India trade: The US imported $103.8 billion of Indian goods in 2025. US tariffs on Indian exports had risen to as high as 50% in August 2025 before being reduced to 18% in February 2026.
• War costs: The US Congressional Budget Office estimated that the war with Iran had cost the Department of Defense $38 billion through 1 August 2026.
• Shipping: Shipping costs remained high. Hiring a crude carrier to move 2 million barrels from the US Gulf Coast to China cost $44.8 million amid supply disruptions in West Asia.

Capital flows

Beijing increased the QDII outbound investment quota by $6.8 billion to a record $183 billion. One Nasdaq 100-tracking fund increased its daily investment limit from 10 yuan to 5,000 yuan on 9 September, then reduced it to 100 yuan the following day.

Technology and corporates

• Meta Platforms: Meta plans to roll out two AI inference chips, Arke and Astrid, in 2027. Arke is expected around mid-2027 and Astrid toward year-end. The aim is to reduce dependence on Nvidia hardware.
• OpenAI: OpenAI is in early talks for a funding round that would value the company at more than $1.2 trillion ahead of an IPO. Its advertising business is on pace for $1 billion in annualised revenue and is live in more than 50 countries. ChatGPT has more than one billion weekly active users.
• Apple and AI agents: Apple released a redesigned Siri that works like a chatbot. Meta's AI agent Muse was downloaded nearly 600,000 times in its first five days. AI agent startup Instinct is valued at $2.5 billion.
• ZRON: Internal data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed China-based ZRON offering AI-driven systems to organise data presented as stolen from foreign government email systems.
• Workplace AI spending: British workers spend a total of £1 billion a year of their own money on AI tools used for work, according to a Deloitte survey.

Zerodha AfterMarket Report; Mint, including Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reporting

Management chatter

The remarks below are reproduced verbatim from the source documents.

Feature: The exchange goes public

Inside the NSE IPO and the ten-year road to it: a ₹22,562 crore offer for sale, a ₹4.42 lakh crore valuation at the top of the band, and a listing on its rival's exchange.

The National Stock Exchange of India opens its IPO for bidding on 17 September 2026. The issue is entirely an offer for sale. NSE is not issuing new shares, so it will not receive any of the money raised. The proceeds will go to the existing shareholders who are selling their shares.

NSE cannot list on its own exchange, so its shares will list on the main board of BSE, which is the designated stock exchange. NSE has also said it will not seek permission to trade its own shares on its platform after listing, according to BSE MD and CEO Sundararaman Ramamurthy.

At the top of the price band, the issue is estimated at around ₹22,562 crore. That would make it India's second-largest public issue after Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,870 crore IPO in 2024, and larger than LIC's ₹21,000 crore IPO in 2022.

The IPO comes almost ten years after NSE first filed its draft papers. That period included the co-location investigation, the largest settlement plea made with Sebi, and several attempts to secure a no-objection certificate.

The offer at a glance

Who is selling

The red herring prospectus reduced the offer to 12.64 crore shares from the 14.9 crore shares proposed in the draft, a cut of roughly 15%. Several public-sector shareholders reduced their proposed sales, SBI Capital Markets joined as a new seller, and LIC, NSE's largest shareholder with a 10.72% stake, is not selling.

Earlier market estimates had put the issue at around ₹30,000 crore, with pricing near ₹2,000 to ₹2,100 per share and a valuation near ₹5 lakh crore. The final price band is lower on both counts, with the implied valuation at the top of the band at about ₹4.42 lakh crore.

The decade-long road to listing

The anchor book

NSE allocated 3,77,93,739 shares at ₹1,785 each to 189 anchor investors, raising ₹6,746.18 crore. The allocation included 98 mutual fund schemes and 27 life insurance companies. Market sources estimated anchor demand at nearly ₹1.2 lakh crore, around 20 times the size of the anchor book.

Foreign portfolio investors invested ₹2,883 crore, or 43% of the book, including more than 20 foreign long-only funds. More than 25 domestic mutual funds and 11 domestic insurance and pension companies invested about ₹3,588 crore, or 53%. LIC was the largest single anchor investor. It bought 22,42,584 shares, equal to 5.93% of the anchor allocation, for about ₹400.30 crore. Government Pension Fund Global and the Monetary Authority of Singapore also participated.

What investors are buying

NSE describes itself as a vertically integrated, multi-asset exchange. Its businesses cover trading, clearing and listing across cash equities, futures, options, mutual funds, commodity derivatives, currency derivatives, wholesale debt and interest rate futures. It also earns from data feeds, terminals and licensing services.

In FY26, NSE held a 92.99% share of India's cash market, 99.79% of equity futures, and 51.18% of global equity derivatives contracts traded. NSE Clearing held 88.42% of cash market clearing and 91.04% of equity derivatives clearing.

FY26 revenue from operations fell 3% from FY25, while profit after tax fell 15%. In the June 2026 quarter, revenue from operations rose to ₹4,560.41 crore from ₹4,032.24 crore a year earlier.

Risks flagged in the prospectus

• Trading volume risk: Revenue depends on trades executed, listing fees and ancillary services. A significant fall in trading volume or value could materially affect the business.
• Transaction charge concentration: Transaction charges accounted for 78.65% of FY26 revenue from operations, and options alone accounted for 60.22%.
• Trading member concentration: The top ten trading members generated 46.78% of FY26 revenue from operations and 47.00% in the June 2026 quarter.
• Regulatory oversight: NSE is primarily overseen by Sebi and is also regulated by IFSCA. It has received observations, show cause notices, administrative warnings and deficiency letters. Enforcement actions under Sections 15-I and 11B of the Sebi Act may also be initiated.
• Other risks: The draft papers also flagged technology and cybersecurity risks. They warned that further regulatory tightening, changes in investor behaviour and a shift to other asset classes could affect performance.

What happens next

This feature draws on the NSE public issue advertisement in Mint (17 September 2026) and the RHP dated 10 September 2026, with financials and market-share data from published filings. The final offer price will be set after bidding closes. This is not investment advice.

Closing note

Market data: Zerodha AfterMarket Report, 16 September 2026 close. Macro and corporate: Mint, Mumbai print edition, 17 September 2026. Feature: NSE public issue advertisement in Mint and named external sources. This is a news aggregation brief. It carries no analysis, opinion or investment advice.