DayStarter

The day at a glance

Market snapshot

Equities and sectors

Indian equities were volatile after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates. The Nifty 50 opened 23 points lower at 23,195, fell to around 23,220 near 11 AM, then recovered to about 23,360 by 12:30 PM. It closed at 23,270.60, up 0.23% for the day. The session range was 23,194 to 23,364, and the close was around 75 points above the opening level.

The Sensex closed almost flat at 74,314.59, down 21.86 points or 0.03%, after moving between 74,163.95 and 74,677.56.

The broader market performed better. Nifty Next 50 rose 1.1%, while the Microcap 250 and Midcap 150 gained 0.9% each and the Smallcap 250 rose 0.8%. Over the past 20 sessions, however, the Nifty 50 is down 3.4%, the Nifty Next 50 is down 3.7%, and the Microcap 250 is down 0.6%.

Pharma and Healthcare were the strongest sectors, rising 1.7% and 1.6% respectively. Bank and Private Bank were the weakest, both down 0.4%. None of the 15 sectoral indices was above all four major trend lines, the 20, 50, 100 and 200-day moving averages. Weighted trend breadth stood at 27 out of 100.

Winners and losers

HDFC Life was the strongest F&O stock in the list, while PB Fintech was the weakest. Outside the F&O universe, Tega Industries rose 11.2%. Overall delivery participation remained below its recent median even though some individual stocks moved sharply.

Commodities and currency

Among MCX futures, zinc rose 1.36% and copper and aluminium edged higher, while crude oil fell 1.81% and gold, silver and natural gas slipped.

• Crude: Brent moved towards $104 per barrel and WTI fell to $101 after reports that Saudi Arabia was offering additional crude cargoes through Oman. Both benchmarks remained above $100 because of concerns around the wider Middle East conflict.
• Currency: The dollar was quoted at ₹95.89, down ₹0.02. The euro was at ₹110.06, up ₹0.66, and the pound at ₹128.49, up ₹0.74.
• Bond yields: The Indian 10-year government bond yield rose 2 basis points to 7.07% on Thursday. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose 2 basis points to 5.02% on Wednesday before easing to 4.98%.
• Yield gap: The spread between the 10-year US Treasury yield and the Indian government bond yield narrowed to 207 basis points from 238 basis points at the start of 2026.

Institutional flows

Foreign investors sold a net ₹588 crore of cash equities on 17 September. Over the latest five sessions, FPIs sold ₹6,841 crore while DIIs bought ₹13,206 crore. In index futures, FIIs had a 12.3% long ratio, equal to a net short position of 290,041 contracts. The comparable long ratios were 84.0% for clients, 69.5% for proprietary desks and 59.4% for DIIs. As of 16 September, DIIs had bought a net ₹31,581 crore of equities during the month, while FPIs had withdrawn ₹17,222 crore.

The macro view

Inflation and rates

• Retail inflation rose to a 20-month high of 4.82% in August. This was the third consecutive month above the RBI's 4% target midpoint.
• Core inflation rose to 4.2% in August from 3.9% in July. Real GDP grew 7.8% in the June quarter, compared with 6.9% a year earlier.
• At least five market participants expect the RBI's 7 October Monetary Policy Committee meeting to end the almost year-long easing cycle with a 25 basis point repo rate hike. Another hike is expected in December.
• The RBI cut the repo rate by a total of 125 basis points in 2025. The final 25 basis point cut came in December and took the repo rate to 5.25%.
• Axis Capital, in a report dated 17 September, expects 50 basis points of RBI tightening in 2026, split between October and December. It expects the full hiking cycle to be limited to 75 basis points.
• Indian bond traders expect the RBI to increase bond sales to absorb surplus liquidity after the first such auction in nine years received strong demand.

Fiscal and trade policy

• US sanctions bill: The US Congress cleared legislation that would allow President Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy, including India and China. The bill awaits the President's signature.
• India's response: India said it will take all necessary measures to protect its trade and economic interests and ensure energy security.
• Energy exposure: India imports about 90% of its crude oil, and more than one-third comes from Russia. India exported goods worth $87 billion to the US, its largest market, in FY26.
• Trade diplomacy: Commerce minister Piyush Goyal will travel to the US later this month for the G20 trade ministerial in Milwaukee, where he may meet US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
• Exports: India's goods exports rose 26% year-on-year in August. April to August growth was 17.8%, or 14.4% excluding petroleum products.
• Rupee: The rupee averaged ₹95.11 per dollar during April to August 2026, compared with ₹88.30 in 2025-26. This is a decline of 7.7%.
• Centre-state conference: The finance ministry is holding a two-day conference of state finance ministers from Friday, ahead of the 7 October GST Council meeting and pre-budget meetings for Budget 2027-28 from 12 October.
• Fiscal deficit: The Centre has set an FY27 fiscal deficit target of 4.3% of GDP, down from 4.4% in FY26.
• Canada CEPA: Canada's trade minister Maninder Sidhu is visiting Mumbai on 18-19 September to advance CEPA talks. Both sides aim to conclude the agreement by the end of 2026.
• Steel: A new EU quota regime could give Indian steel exporters duty-free access for up to 2.8 million tonnes of annual shipments before the India-EU free trade agreement takes effect.

Payments and regulation

• UPI MDR: From 15 October, NPCI will apply a 0.4% fee on person-to-merchant UPI transactions above ₹2,000. The fee is capped at ₹300 per transaction. Fuel, telecom, railways and insurance will have a flat ₹5 fee.
• Capital-market payments: UPI transactions involving mutual funds, securities and brokers will have an MDR of 0.02%, also capped at ₹300.
• Scale: P2M UPI payments above ₹2,000 were only 4% of 152 billion P2M transactions by volume in 2025-26, but represented 67% of the ₹91 trillion transacted by value. At a 0.4% fee, this implies about ₹24,000 crore in annual fee revenue.
• Sebi response: Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the regulator will examine stockbrokers' concerns about the UPI MDR.
• E-commerce: The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) (Amendment) Rules, 2026 take effect on 1 January 2027. Platforms must show a product's lowest price in the previous 30 days when advertising a discount and must clearly label sponsored listings.
• Consumer complaints: E-commerce accounted for nearly 30% of national consumer helpline complaints in 2025.
• Pharmacies: The health ministry has proposed mandatory CCTV surveillance at retail medical stores through a draft amendment to the Drugs Rules, 1945. The proposal is open for comments for 30 days.
• NBFCs: The RBI cancelled the certificates of registration of five NBFCs, while eight NBFCs surrendered their licences.

Infrastructure and sectors

• E-buses: CESL added Haryana's requirement for 450 electric buses to its third PM E-bus Sewa tender. The total tender is now 4,054 buses, and a single entity can bid for up to 2,717 buses, up from 2,400.
• Payment support: The Centre created a ₹3,433 crore fund to ensure timely payments to bus operators and has earmarked ₹20,000 crore for the scheme through FY29 to support 10,000 electric buses.
• Semiconductors: Semicon 2.0 guidelines issued on Thursday prevent approved chip plants from selling or mortgaging any part of a project until commercial production is declared.
• Semicon investment: IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Semicon 2.0 has attracted $11-12 billion, or about ₹1 trillion, of investment commitments expected over the next two to three years.
• Funding: 281 companies in India's semiconductor industry have raised $1.4 billion, with about half of that amount raised since 2025.
• NaBFID: NaBFID aims to raise about $4 billion in total dollar funding by December, including up to $1 billion through its first 10-year bond.
• Cotton: BIS is modernising 21 cotton-testing laboratories under a ₹38.72 crore project. India accounts for about 23% of global cotton output.
• Rail freight: Freight loaded by Indian Railways rose 5.4% year-on-year in August, led by coal, iron ore, steel and fertilizers.
• Shipping costs: Daily charter rates for oil tankers to India rose 150% in two weeks, from around $100,000 to $250,000, because of hostilities in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.
• Agriculture: India's rice production could fall by about 10 million tonnes to around 144 million tonnes. That would be a 6.5% decline from last year's record 154 million tonnes and the steepest fall since 2009/10.
• Land monetisation: NLMC will hold investor meetings from 23 to 25 September for the e-auction of 459 land parcels owned by RINL.

Corporate action and earnings

Domestic headlines

Tata Sons

The Tata Sons board reportedly approved the company's listing and another five-year term for N Chandrasekaran as chairman after a three-hour meeting. Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata was said to have been outvoted. The board reappointed Chandrasekaran by a 4-1 vote for five more years from the end of his current term on 20 February. Tata Trusts called the decision a “legal nullity”.

Noel Tata presented a Shapoorji Pallonji Group offer to sell up to a 3% stake back to Tata Sons for ₹25,000 crore over 18 months. The offer values Tata Sons at ₹8.3 trillion and was presented as an alternative to a public listing. SP Group owns 18.38% of Tata Sons and must repay ₹3,500 crore by the end of September. The RBI's latest FAQs clarify that Tata Sons' debt-free status cannot exempt it from upper-layer NBFC listing rules because access to “public funds” includes funds accessed indirectly through group companies.

NSE IPO

The ₹22,569 crore NSE IPO, India's second-largest after Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,870 crore issue, was subscribed 43% on day one. The retail portion was subscribed 44% and the QIB portion 19%. NSE raised ₹6,746 crore from 189 anchor investors at ₹1,785 per share. LIC received the largest allotment at 5.93% of the anchor issue. The IPO closes on 21 September.

• Jindal Supreme IPO: The ₹125 crore issue was subscribed 31.5 times on day two, with the retail quota at 39.74 times. The price band is ₹88-93 per share.
• VVDN Technologies: The electronics manufacturing services company is considering a ₹4,000-5,000 crore IPO. FY25 revenue rose to ₹3,864.6 crore from ₹2,172.3 crore.
• EQT: EQT plans to invest $50 billion in India by 2030, including around $30 billion in data centres and $5 billion in renewable energy. This includes a significant investment in Gautam Adani's data centre business.
• Brookfield-ACME: Brookfield will invest up to $600 million in ACME Cleantech Ventures to develop green ammonia and green methanol projects in India and Oman. This is Brookfield's entry into the region's low-carbon fuels sector.
• Advent-Yatharth: Advent International will invest ₹3,150 crore in Yatharth Hospital and Trauma Care Services for a 24.9% stake. Yatharth shares rose nearly 9% to ₹1,070.45.
• Semicon India 2026: Applied Materials will invest $5 billion in India over 10 years. Tata Electronics signed seven MoUs, including agreements with Nexperia and Fujifilm. Fujifilm committed ₹800 crore for a materials plant at Dholera.
• Lam Research: Lam Research will invest nearly $1.1 billion, or about ₹10,000 crore, to set up its first silicon component manufacturing facility in India.
• HCLTech: HCLTech launched HCLTech Pulse, a business unit focused on mid-market companies with annual revenue of $500 million to $5 billion.
• Auto exports: Utility vehicle exports rose 23% to 203,582 units during April to August and made up 56% of passenger vehicle exports. Car exports fell 16% to 154,190 units. Maruti Suzuki exports rose 14% to 186,603 units, with utility vehicles making up 62% of the total.
• Paytm: Emkay expects ₹1,120 crore of incremental MDR revenue for Paytm in FY28, compared with JM Financial's estimate of ₹473 crore. Paytm's UPI market share rose to 6.7% in Q1FY27 from 5.6%.
• Polycab: Polycab shares are down 7% since UltraTech launched its wires and cables brand Ultravolt on 3 September, backed by a ₹1,800 crore investment. Polycab's Q1FY27 consolidated revenue rose 39% year-on-year to ₹8,210 crore, while EBITDA margin fell 70 basis points to 13.8%.
• Titan: Titan's watches business reported total income of ₹1,543 crore in the June quarter, up 21%. EBIT was ₹295 crore and segment margin was 19.1%.
• Oil India: The state-run company plans to invest around ₹15,000 crore over the next three years to explore offshore deep and ultra-deep blocks.
• Hiranandani: Hiranandani Group plans to invest ₹2,000 crore to develop 5 million square feet across 215 acres in Tamil Nadu under Greenbase 2.0.
• AWS: The Delhi High Court set aside an income-tax order seeking to reopen Amazon Web Services' assessment over foreign remittances of more than ₹4,500 crore for assessment year 2020-21.
• Kore Digital: Sebi barred Kore Digital and three senior executives from raising money through public offers after finding prima facie evidence of financial manipulation. It also ordered a forensic audit.
• Orange Health: Orange Health Labs plans to add around 80 collection centres by the end of this fiscal year. FY26 revenue rose to ₹143 crore from ₹88 crore, while losses rose to ₹146 crore.
• Data centres: Hyderabad and other emerging markets accounted for 10%, or 178 MW, of India's operational data-centre capacity as of 30 June. This is projected to rise to 1.1 GW by the end of 2030.
• Closing auction: Mutual fund participation in NSE's Closing Auction Session rose to nearly 25% of volume by mid-August from around 5% at launch, though funds still route mostly small trades through the session.
• Family businesses: An Executive Access study of 474 companies found that the patriarch was older than 60 in 294 of them, while only 3% had completed a clean succession.

Upcoming events

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

Global pulse

Global indices

World markets were mixed. The Nasdaq 100 led, up 1.2%, followed by the DAX 40 and S&P 500 at +0.9% each and the FTSE 100 at +0.7%. The Hang Seng fell the most, down 0.6%, and the Shanghai Composite slipped 0.4%.

These are broker-supplied CFD-equivalent reference indices, not official cash-index closes, and session cut-offs differ.

Central banks and geopolitics

• US Federal Reserve: The Fed raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 3.75-4%, the first increase since July 2023. US inflation was 3.4% in August.
• US equities: US shares fell after the Fed decision, although a strong rebound in futures later helped Indian markets at the open.
• Bank of England: The BoE held rates at 3.75% by a 6-3 vote. Three members preferred a 25 basis point increase. The bank highlighted higher energy prices as an inflation risk, while UK inflation reached 3.1% in August.
• China: The offshore yuan strengthened to around 6.70 per dollar as the Shanghai Clearing House began clearing spot trades in the Singapore dollar, New Zealand dollar and Thai baht.
• Clearing activity: Twelve banks cleared 996 million yuan, or $148 million, on the first day of the new arrangement.
• Iran and Hormuz: Around 3,700 trucks are stranded on the Iranian side of the crossing to Turkey, with delays of up to 20 days as Iran shifts trade overland around the US blockade.
• Iranian inflation and logistics: Food inflation in Iran rose to 128% in August. Moving one container from China to Iran costs about $12,000 by land compared with $3,000 by sea.
• US Treasuries: Foreign holdings of US Treasuries fell to $9.248 trillion in July from $9.298 trillion in June, mainly because Japan and China reduced their holdings.

Global corporate

• Salesforce: Salesforce forecast FY2030 revenue of $63 billion, above analysts' estimate of $61.4 billion, including revenue from Informatica.
• Anthropic: Anthropic launched Claude Docs for creating and editing documents within Claude, initially for Pro and Max subscribers.
• OpenAI: OpenAI disclosed six new cases of AI misalignment during model training and evaluation and adopted a new framework for reporting them.

Management chatter

The remarks below are reproduced verbatim from the source documents.

Feature: The Fed turns hawkish

The first US rate hike since 2023 and the path to India. The Federal Reserve raised rates by 25 basis points, taking the federal funds target range to 3.75% to 4%. A majority of officials also expect at least one more increase this year.

The decision matters beyond the US because higher American rates can affect bond yields, the dollar, global capital flows, the rupee and Indian monetary policy.

The decision

On Wednesday, 16 September, the Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 to raise the federal funds target range by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4%. It was the first increase since July 2023 and reversed the rate cut delivered last December. The change took effect on 17 September. The interest rate paid on reserve balances rose to 3.90%, while the primary credit rate moved to 4.0%.

The Fed said economic activity continued to expand at a solid pace. Domestic spending remained resilient, productivity growth was strong and capital investment was robust. Job gains kept pace with the workforce and unemployment changed little. The reason for the hike was inflation: the Committee said inflation remains elevated and that the move should help return inflation to the 2% goal sooner.

Why the Fed moved now

At the Jackson Hole symposium on 28 August, Chair Kevin Warsh said the Fed would need to be confident that underlying inflation was moving clearly and quickly enough towards its objective before easing concern. On Wednesday he said that test had not been met. At the July meeting, three officials had voted for a rate hike while the committee held rates steady. This time the vote was unanimous.

Inflation has remained above the 2% target for more than five years. Warsh said total PCE inflation was likely around 3.6% in August, with too many categories still rising by more than 3% over both six and twelve months. He also pointed to higher commodity input prices. US consumer inflation was 3.4% in August, above target for the second month, with energy prices from the West Asia war, tariffs and AI-related demand adding pressure.

Warsh listed geopolitics as one of three developments since July that changed the committee's view. Officials had earlier treated the energy shock as temporary. With crude back around $100 a barrel, that approach changed. He also said broad financial conditions did not look restrictive, a view he said was widely shared by the committee.

What the projections show

Eighteen officials submitted projections. Twelve expect one more 25 basis point hike this year, four expect two more, and two expect no further increase. The median path places the policy rate around 4.1% at the end of 2026 and keeps it there through 2027. Inflation forecasts moved higher from June, when the median projection was 3.6% for total inflation and 3.3% for core inflation in 2026. The year-end unemployment forecast fell to 4.1% from 4.3%.

Warsh again did not submit a projection of his own and refused to prejudge future decisions. He said he was “not in the forward guidance business.” The next FOMC meeting is in late October.

The independence question

President Donald Trump, who selected Warsh after repeatedly criticising Jerome Powell for not cutting rates faster, said he had told Warsh before the meeting to do what he wanted. After the decision, Trump posted “LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!” without directly attacking Warsh. When asked about Trump's threat to halt trade with deficit countries unless rates fall, Warsh said, “Part of the independence of the Federal Reserve is we stay in our lane.”

How US markets took it

Stocks and bonds were little changed immediately after the announcement, then moved as Warsh spoke. The Dow fell about 650 points after his remarks. The US dollar index rose around 0.6%, and the 2-year Treasury yield rose six basis points to its highest level in more than two years. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 2 basis points to 5.02% before easing to 4.98% by the end of the day. It is around one percentage point above its February low.

The India transmission

The Fed decision came after Indian markets had closed on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Nifty 50 opened 23 points lower at 23,195, moved sharply during the session and finished 0.23% higher at 23,270.60. Foreign investors sold ₹588 crore of cash equities and held a 12.3% long ratio in index futures. Over five sessions, FPIs sold ₹6,841 crore while DIIs bought ₹13,206 crore.

The spread between the 10-year US Treasury yield and the Indian government bond yield narrowed to 207 basis points from 238 basis points at the start of 2026. The Indian 10-year yield rose 2 basis points to 7.07% on Thursday. The dollar was quoted at ₹95.89, while the rupee averaged ₹95.11 per dollar during April to August compared with ₹88.30 in 2025-26.

Past Fed hiking months show that domestic institutional buying can offset foreign selling, but this does not guarantee positive market returns. Across 21 Fed rate-hike months from December 2015 to September 2026, DIIs were net buyers in 17 months. In all 10 months when FPIs were net sellers, DIIs were net buyers, but the Nifty still fell in seven of those 10 months.

Across all 21 hike months in the sample, the Nifty rose in nine and fell in 12. Foreign investors were net buyers in 10 and net sellers in 11.

RBI's turn

India enters this period with the repo rate at 5.25% after 125 basis points of cuts in 2025. CPI inflation reached a 20-month high of 4.82% in August, core inflation was 4.2%, and real GDP growth was 7.8% in the June quarter. The RBI has already been absorbing surplus liquidity through variable rate reverse repo auctions and open-market bond sales, and bond traders expect more debt sales.

At least five market participants now expect the Monetary Policy Committee to end the easing cycle with a 25 basis point hike on 7 October and to raise rates again in December. Axis Capital expects 50 basis points of tightening in 2026, with the overall cycle limited to 75 basis points. Emkay Global's Madhavi Arora expects a shallow cycle of 50 to 75 basis points. Kotak Mutual Fund's Deepak Agrawal said rising crude, inflation and global rates “may also guide the India MPC to raise rates by 50 bps.” Omniscience Capital's Vikas Gupta said the RBI could first move to a tougher stance and raise rates at a later meeting.

The external backdrop adds another layer. The US Congress has cleared a bill allowing tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy, including India, while Brent crude remains above $100 per barrel.

Dates to watch

This feature draws on the Federal Reserve's FOMC statement, implementation note, Summary of Economic Projections and Chair Warsh's press conference transcript (16 September 2026), with additional reporting from Mint and named external sources. This is not investment advice.

Closing note

Market data: Zerodha AfterMarket Report, 17 September 2026 close. Macro and corporate: Mint, Mumbai print edition, 18 September 2026. Feature: Federal Reserve materials and named external sources. This is a news aggregation brief. It carries no analysis, opinion or investment advice.