DayStarter

The day at a glance

Market snapshot

Equities and sectors

Indian markets opened higher but lost momentum as the session progressed. The Nifty 50 opened at 23,454, around 40 points above the previous close, and briefly moved towards 23,465 to 23,470. Selling after 10 AM pulled it down to around 23,380 by 10:45 AM. A second round of selling took the index to an intraday low near 23,285 around 2 PM.

The Nifty briefly recovered towards 23,400 after reports of discussions on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Most of that recovery faded by the close. The index ended at 23,329, down 0.36% and around 125 points below its opening level. The Sensex closed at 74,529.08, down 329.91 points or 0.44%.

Banks also moved lower. Nifty Bank fell 0.5%, PSU Bank fell 0.5% and Private Bank fell 0.3%. The broader market held up better than the large-cap index. Nifty Microcap 250 rose 0.4%, while Midcap 150 and Smallcap 250 fell only 0.1% each.

The Nifty 50 closed below its 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages by 1.6%, 3.0%, 2.5% and 4.6% respectively. The Microcap 250 was above all four moving averages.

Sector performance was weak, with 11 of 15 sector indices falling. Media rose 1.2% and was the strongest sector, while IT fell 0.9% and was the weakest. Only Healthcare, Media and Pharma closed above all four major trend lines. Eight sectors were below all four. Pharma and Healthcare remained strong over both 20- and 60-session periods, while Private Banks continued to improve over the shorter period.

Winners and losers

RBL Bank led F&O gainers with a 5.2% rise, while Kaynes Technology fell 5.3%. Outside F&O, Gabriel India rose 14.0% and traded at around 30 times its usual volume. Meesho and Jain Resource Recycling also recorded sharp moves on high volumes.

Commodities and currency

• Crude: Crude oil fell below $91 per barrel to a more than two-week low. It was the fifth straight session of losses. Reports said Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade of Iranian ports.
• Gold: MCX gold traded at ₹1,51,483 per 10 grams on Tuesday. Gold gained 21% in 2024, 75% in 2025 and is up 15% in 2026.
• Nickel: Nickel rose to around $16,400 per tonne as an El Niño-driven water shortage threatened output at Indonesia's Morowali Industrial Park. Around 100,000 tonnes of output could be affected.
• Bonds: The 10-year benchmark Indian government bond yield was 7.05% on Monday.
• Lending rates: The yield on NABARD's 10-year bond has risen 15 basis points to 7.83% since 2 April. At the same time, the weighted average lending rate on new rupee loans fell to 8.52% in July from 8.99% in March.

Institutional flows

On 22 September, foreign investors were net sellers of ₹675 crore while domestic institutions were net buyers of around ₹4,100 crore. FII positioning in index futures remained heavily short: only 10.5% of FII positions were long, a more bearish reading than on 96% of days since 2016. Retail investors were more long than on 100% of days in the same comparison. DIIs were 60% long and proprietary trading desks were 73% long.

The macro view

Payments and banking

• ATM cash readiness: The RBI and finance ministry asked banks to ensure enough cash is available at ATMs from 15 October, when the new UPI merchant fee begins, according to two people cited by Mint.
• UPI MDR: A 0.4% merchant discount rate will apply to person-to-merchant UPI payments above ₹2,000. The charge is capped at ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 and above. Person-to-person transfers remain free.
• Most payments remain exempt: Around 96% of P2M UPI transaction volume is below ₹2,000 and will stay outside the MDR framework.
• ATM network: The number of ATMs fell to 2,51,057 by end-March 2025 from 2,53,417. Public sector banks had 1,33,544 ATMs, private banks 77,117 and white-label operators 36,216.
• Cash remains important even as digital payments grow. Currency in circulation was ₹42.86 trillion at end-August 2026, up 12.5% year-on-year. UPI processed 2,451 crore transactions worth about ₹29.82 trillion in August.
• Bank strike preparation: The finance ministry asked the home ministry to secure currency chests, data centres, treasury operations and ATMs ahead of the proposed nationwide strike from 28 to 30 September.
• Korean capital: South Korea's National Pension Service, which manages more than $1.3 trillion, is seeking a licence to invest in Indian government securities through SEBI's lower-compliance route.
• Public bond issuance: Companies raised ₹3,898 crore through public bond issues between 1 April and 21 September, a three-year low, compared with ₹4,740 crore a year earlier. Private placements fell to ₹5.09 trillion from ₹5.22 trillion.

Energy and infrastructure

• Diesel curbs: Jio-bp capped diesel sales at 50 litres per customer per transaction and 6,000 litres a day at each of its 2,000 outlets across 21 states and union territories.
• Fuel retail context: Jio-bp accounts for about one-fifth of India's roughly 10,000 private fuel pumps. India has around 100,000 pumps in total, about 90% owned by state-run oil marketing companies. Those companies have not imposed similar curbs.
• Brent crude has remained above $100 a barrel for weeks and touched a four-month high of $110 on 14 September.
• Aviation policy: The Centre is considering whether airport operators such as Adani Airport Holdings should be allowed to own airlines. Delhi and Mumbai airport operators can currently hold up to 10% in an airline under their operating agreements.
• Mineral exchange: India's first mineral exchange could be registered and operating by FY27. The Mineral Exchange Rules, 2026 were notified in June.

Agriculture and rural economy

• Paddy procurement: The government kept its KMS 2026-27 paddy procurement target at 71.95 million tonnes even though paddy acreage fell to 42.9 million hectares as of 18 September from 44.6 million hectares a year earlier.
• State targets: Punjab is expected to contribute around 18 million tonnes, Chhattisgarh 10.9 million tonnes, Odisha 6.4 million tonnes, Uttar Pradesh 6.2 million tonnes and Haryana 5.8 million tonnes.
• Kharif sowing: Farmers had sown 110.39 million hectares by 18 September, down 1.3%, or 1.5 million hectares, year-on-year. Rainfall was 15% below normal.
• Handlooms and handicrafts: The Centre is working on a ₹9,000 crore five-year package. Exports were ₹34,499 crore in FY26, up 0.6%, compared with ₹34,302 crore in FY25, up 1.2%.

Trade and growth

• India-New Zealand FTA: The agreement comes into force next month. Indian exporters will receive duty-free access across 100% of New Zealand's tariff lines. Current tariffs range from zero to 10%, with an average of 2.2%.
• India has offered tariff concessions on 70% of its tariff lines, covering around 95% of bilateral trade value. New Zealand has committed to promote around $20 billion of foreign direct investment into India.
• Services and exclusions: New Zealand will offer access in 118 service sectors and 5,000 visas at a time for Indian professionals. Dairy, most animal products, sugar and edible oils are excluded.
• Chile: India and Chile are working towards a CEPA. Bilateral trade exceeded $5.6 billion in 2025.
• Canada: Canadian trade minister Maninder Sidhu said trade talks with India are making 'great headway', with both sides looking to conclude a deal in the coming months.
• Software exports: The US share of India's software services exports rose to 54.1% in FY26. Engineering services increased to 17.6% of the mix from 16.2%.
• Growth outlook: DBS economist Radhika Rao said India's economy could lose momentum in the second half of FY27 as tighter financial conditions, high energy prices and base effects weigh on activity.
• Industry: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told an AIMA event that corporate managers should move from the 'made in India' idea to 'imagined in India'.
• Multilateralism: India joined the EU, Australia, Brazil and Canada in launching the P4M platform on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar said 'reformed multilateralism' is essential.
• Drug regulation: The CDSCO advised that all NSAIDs and antibiotics should be sold only on prescription, citing chronic kidney disease risk.

Jobs in poll-bound states

More than 45 million people are in their twenties in these states, and only around 47% are employed. Uttar Pradesh alone has 30 million young adults, with an employment rate below 40%. Nationally, an urban young adult is almost three times as likely as a rural peer to work in a formal enterprise, 17.2% versus 5.9%. In Uttar Pradesh, only around 4% work in formal enterprises. An employed urban young adult spends 7 hours 35 minutes a day at work, compared with 6 hours 35 minutes for a rural counterpart.

Corporate action and earnings

Governance

• Tata Sons and TVS Motor: An eight-month Mint investigation found business links between family members of Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran and TVS Motor. TVS Motor chairman-emeritus Venu Srinivasan's vote helped secure Chandrasekaran a new term.
• The transaction: TVS Motor leased 17 acres in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district in June 2025 to Hanno One Warehousing. The company's directors are Chandrasekaran's son Pranav and wife Lalitha. HDFC Bank offered the company a ₹60 crore construction loan.
• Responses: Tata Sons said a disclosure was made in April 2025 to all companies chaired by Chandrasekaran. Tata Trusts said Srinivasan made no such disclosure to it.
• Adani settlement: Five Adani Group companies settled SEBI proceedings over alleged disclosure lapses by paying a combined ₹1.5 crore, without admitting or denying the allegations.

Primary market and capital raising

• NSE IPO: LIC bid around ₹4,500 crore in NSE's $2.4 billion IPO. ICICI Prudential AMC and Quant Mutual Fund bid around ₹2,000 crore each, while Norges Bank and Mirae Asset bid around ₹1,000 crore each, according to people familiar with the matter.
• The NSE offer was subscribed 5.7 times overall. The retail portion was subscribed 1.3 times and the qualified institutional portion around 12.7 times. The issue was priced at ₹1,785, around 43 times FY26 earnings.
• Anchor investors received 37.79 million shares worth ₹6,746 crore. The issue was entirely an offer for sale. NSE shares begin trading on the BSE on 24 September.
• India ECM: Jefferies' Jibi Jacob expects Indian equity capital market activity of $55-60 billion in 2026, compared with a record $60 billion in 2025. He expects block deals of $25-27 billion, IPOs of $17-19 billion and QIPs of around $8 billion.
• Spinny: Valuedrive Technologies filed confidential draft papers for a ₹3,000 crore IPO. FY25 revenue rose to ₹4,746.3 crore from ₹3,822.4 crore, while the loss narrowed to ₹423.8 crore from ₹590.4 crore.
• Snapdeal parent AceVector: The ₹420 crore IPO, including ₹287 crore of fresh shares and ₹133 crore of offer-for-sale shares, opens on 25 September at ₹30-32 a share. FY26 operating revenue rose 30% to ₹510 crore and the net loss narrowed to ₹45 crore from ₹126 crore.
• Elevate Campuses: The ₹2,100 crore fresh issue at ₹343-362 opens Wednesday and closes Friday. Net debt rose to ₹2,712.9 crore in FY26 from ₹695.3 crore, and net debt to EBITDA rose to 4.98 times.
• Abakkus Asset Manager: The Sunil Singhania-promoted firm filed its DRHP for an IPO that is entirely an offer for sale of 1.5 crore shares by promoter Abakkus Expert Professional.
• Romsons Group: The medical devices company received a strategic private equity investment from Temasek. Terms were not disclosed. Mint had earlier reported a ₹1,500 crore minority stake valuing the firm at around $500 million.
• Blue bond: Sagarmala Finance Corp. plans India's first blue bond on 28 September. It aims to raise ₹600 crore, including a ₹500 crore greenshoe, through 10-year bonds.

Company updates

• BEML: Shares rose 4% after the company won its largest order, worth ₹5,400 crore, for B28 high-speed trainsets for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project. The order book rose to ₹22,000 crore, about five times trailing revenue.
• Tata Capital: Q1FY27 assets under management rose 22% to ₹2.9 trillion and net profit rose 56% to ₹1,628 crore. Calculated net interest margin fell to a three-quarter low of 5.03%, according to Systematix Research.
• JSW Group: JSW entered electric commercial vehicles through the Ampstar brand. JSW Greentech is investing ₹2,500 crore in a Maharashtra plant with initial capacity of 15,000 vehicles a year, expandable to 25,000.
• JSW Greentech aims to sell up to 1,000 vehicles by March 2027 and 100,000 by 2030. It is the fourth major conglomerate in the segment after Tata, Mahindra and Hinduja.
• Samsung India: FY26 profit fell 36% to ₹7,228 crore even as revenue from operations rose 1.2% to ₹1.12 lakh crore.
• Casio India: Revenue rose to ₹894 crore in FY25 from ₹394 crore in FY21. Net profit rose to ₹53.6 crore from ₹8.3 crore. The company plans to increase its store count from 87 to 200 by 2030.
• Puravankara: The developer entered Delhi-NCR with a 13.44-acre project in Greater Noida. The project has a gross development value of ₹5,200 crore and saleable potential of 4.57 million square feet.
• PhonePe: The Walmart-backed fintech received in-principle approval from the UAE central bank for two licences. Final approval is required before operations begin.
• Wipro: The company delayed permanent onboarding for at least 400 WILP trainees and moved their conversion date forward by one month to 1 March 2027.
• SpiceJet: The DGCA is carrying out an operational and financial review. Domestic market share fell to 1.6% in July from 1.9% in June. The airline has received ₹150 crore under ECLGS.
• Gold demand: Gold sales during Ganesh Chaturthi fell around 15% year-on-year by volume as record prices pushed buyers towards lighter purchases and exchanges of old gold.
• FII view: Bernstein said foreign investors may return to India for trading opportunities but have little reason for long-term investment, citing valuations, currency returns, earnings revisions and a limited set of investable opportunities.
• Tech and startups: Bharti Airtel will offer a 50GB iCloud plan to iPhone users on post-paid plans of ₹999 and above. Starbucks plans to hire around 800 technology professionals for a new global capability centre in Chennai.
• Healthcare AI: India's adoption of electronic medical records rose from 18% in 2018 to 35% in 2026, according to a Bain & Co. and HealthQuad study, as Narayana Health and Apollo Hospitals expand their use of AI.

Upcoming events

Dividends, record dates and the earnings calendar were not carried in today's source documents. Current schedules are available through the NSE, BSE and Tijori App.

Global pulse

Overseas markets

Wall Street and AI

• Wall Street on Monday: The Nasdaq Composite rose 2.3% to a record high for a third straight gain. The S&P 500 rose 1.5% and the Dow gained 0.7%, or 366 points.
• Meta: Shares rose 11%, the company's biggest one-day gain in more than a year, adding $192 billion in market value after its Muse AI agent topped Apple's App Store.
• Chips: Intel rose 12% and AMD 10%. AMD crossed $1 trillion in market capitalisation, becoming the 14th US company to do so.
• Rates and crypto: The US 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.962%. Markets were pricing a high probability of at least one more Fed rate hike this year. Bitcoin reached around $86,000.
• Hormuz: Around 2.4 million barrels a day of Saudi crude and condensate again moved through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks, after attacks had shut Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline.
• Freight costs: Shipping crude from Ras Tanura to Ningbo in China rose from around $4.5 million to nearly $63 million per trip, according to Société Générale's Michael Haigh.
• AI debt: Gross debt issuance by hyperscalers is expected to reach a record $420 billion next year, up 60% from 2026 estimates. Goldman Sachs put AI-related credit spreads at around 115 basis points compared with 78 basis points for broader investment-grade debt.
• Media merger: Paramount Skydance cleared a major legal hurdle for its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after settlements with a California-led group of states and a Hollywood writers union.
• Alibaba: Shares rose 5% after the company unveiled what it called China's most powerful AI chip, the Zhenwu V900. It also said it is developing a model up to four times larger than its current flagship.
• Alibaba has committed more than $53 billion to AI over three years and targets 20 GW of data-centre capacity by 2032. Citigroup estimates this could generate more than $160 billion of external revenue.
• AI regulation: UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres used his final UN General Assembly address to call for international safeguards for AI. Leaders from more than 20 countries and the EU called for mandatory safety testing of advanced models.
• Space launches: SpaceX is winding down Falcon 9 to focus on Starship. The list price of a standard Falcon 9 launch has risen 19% over five years to $74 million.
• Apple: The company is pitching new Mac Minis and Mac Studios to enterprises for local AI workloads. Apple has around 4.6% of the enterprise desktop market compared with 91.3% for Windows, according to IDC.
• Other numbers: Mark Zuckerberg's estimated net worth rose to $253.6 billion. Private equity firms agreed to invest $175 million of preferred equity in Symplr.

Management chatter

Feature

Micron Technology: How a memory shortage turned a cyclical chipmaker into a trillion-dollar company

Micron Technology closed at $1,096.16 on 22 September, up 5% for the day. The 48-year-old memory-chip company is now worth around $1.24 trillion. Its share price has changed dramatically, but the bigger change is visible in the economics of the business.

The run

Over the past 52 weeks, Micron traded between $154.65 and $1,255.00. By 4 September, the stock was up 256% for the calendar year. By 9 September, it was up 724% over twelve months. Over three years, the share price increased around 13.7 times.

The path was volatile. Micron fell 7.02% on 18 August, 4.90% on 10 September and 5.25% on 14 September. It then rose around 14% over the three trading days through 21 September after Stifel's Brian Chin repeated a Buy rating with a $1,500 price target. Micron's beta is 2.22, meaning the stock has historically moved more than twice as much as the broader US market. Tuesday's gain came as memory shares rose on renewed AI optimism and a sharp fall in oil prices.

For most of its history, Micron was a classic cyclical business. Memory chips behave like commodities: profits rise quickly when prices are strong and can collapse when prices fall. The present valuation reflects a market view that the structure of the business may be changing.

What Micron makes

Micron mainly makes DRAM and NAND memory. DRAM is fast, temporary working memory used by processors while they calculate. It loses its data when power is turned off. NAND is storage memory used in SSDs and phones and keeps data after power is removed. Micron also sells NOR flash. The company was founded in 1978 and employs around 53,000 people.

The product at the centre of the current cycle is high-bandwidth memory, or HBM. HBM is a type of DRAM where memory dies are stacked vertically and placed close to an AI accelerator such as an Nvidia GPU. AI systems need very large amounts of data to move to the processor quickly, and HBM provides that bandwidth. Only SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron produce HBM at scale. IDC estimates the same three companies control more than 95% of global DRAM production.

In the quarter ended 28 May 2026, DRAM generated $31.3 billion, or 76% of Micron revenue. NAND generated $9.9 billion, or 24%.

Why the shortage matters

AI demand is part of the story, but the tighter constraint is supply. HBM uses around three times the wafer capacity of standard DRAM per bit, according to a Micron executive. Wafer capacity is scarce. When capacity is moved to HBM for AI accelerators, less capacity is available for ordinary DDR5 and DDR4 memory used in servers, laptops, phones and cars. HBM also sells at higher prices and margins, so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have all shifted more production towards it.

Three factors made the shortage worse. First, memory companies cut output and delayed expansion during the 2022-23 downturn, so the industry entered the AI boom with limited spare capacity. Second, new semiconductor fabs take years to build, and new capacity from Micron and SK Hynix is not expected to reach volume production before 2027 at the earliest. Third, hyperscalers including Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon began signing long-term supply agreements, locking up production for years.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said the company could meet only 50% to two-thirds of customer demand in the medium term. Samsung and SK Hynix saw finished DRAM inventory fall below 10 days of supply on 7 September. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said memory prices had risen five to seven times. The shortage allowed memory producers to raise prices sharply and expand margins.

Operating leverage: why profits moved much faster than revenue

Memory manufacturing has very high fixed costs. Fabs, equipment and engineering teams cost roughly the same whether memory prices are strong or weak. When prices rise, a large part of the extra revenue can therefore flow into profit. Micron shows this clearly.

Revenue rose 346% year-on-year, while cost of goods sold increased only from $5.79 billion to $6.40 billion. Nearly the entire $32 billion increase in revenue therefore became gross profit, which rose from $3.51 billion to $35.06 billion. This is operating leverage: earnings per share rose around thirteen times while revenue rose around four-and-a-half times. The move towards HBM4, which Micron is shipping to its lead accelerator customer and on which it has booked more than $1 billion of revenue, has been identified as the most important driver of the margin expansion.

Three years ago, Micron lost $5.83 billion in a year as revenue almost halved. Consensus now expects net income of $82.98 billion for the fiscal year that ended in August.

From cycle to contract

Micron's sales model is also changing. Alongside its June results, the company announced 16 multi-year Strategic Customer Agreements with at least approximately $100 billion of contracted revenue. Data-centre revenue exceeded $25 billion in the quarter, equal to an annualised run rate above $100 billion.

The balance sheet strengthened at the same time. Long-term debt fell from $14.02 billion in August 2025 to $5.14 billion in May 2026, while cash and investments reached $30.2 billion. Consensus FY27 EPS rose from around $102.72 to $155.03 during the 90 days to early September. Among 49 analysts polled by S&P Global, the average one-year target price is $1,515.

The India connection

Micron's supply chain now includes Gujarat. Its assembly and test plant in Sanand has a combined investment of around $2.75 billion with government partners. Micron's own contribution is up to $825 million across two phases. Commercial production began in February 2026 and the facility was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was the first proposal approved under the India Semiconductor Mission.

The Sanand plant does not manufacture wafers. It takes DRAM and NAND wafers produced elsewhere in Micron's network and turns them into finished memory products through assembly and testing. The first shipment of made-in-India memory modules went to Dell Technologies. Micron expects to assemble and test tens of millions of chips in Sanand during 2026 and hundreds of millions in 2027. The company also has engineering and design teams in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

What could weaken the story

• China's CXMT: The Chinese DRAM manufacturer moved its fifth-generation process into mass production with at least 50% more dies per wafer. It held around 9.5% of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter. The main risk is a shorter period of scarcity rather than an immediate price collapse.
• Memory's history: Micron's FY23 loss is a reminder that memory prices can reverse quickly. Checks cited by UBS suggest the present shortage could last through calendar 2027 and into 2028, but the industry has repeatedly moved from shortage to oversupply in previous cycles.
• Valuation disagreement: Analyst price targets range from $361 to $2,200. Goldman Sachs has a Hold rating with a $1,100 target, close to the current share price.
• Forward multiple: Micron trades at around 24.7 times trailing earnings but only around 7.5 times forward earnings. The low forward multiple reflects uncertainty about how long current memory prices and margins can last.
• Demand fulfilment: Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has said the company can meet only 50% to two-thirds of customer demand in the medium term.

What to watch on 30 September

Micron reports fiscal fourth-quarter results on 30 September. Management has guided to revenue of $50 billion plus or minus $1 billion, a gross margin of around 86% and earnings per share of $31.00 plus or minus $1.00. The market consensus is around $50.59 billion of revenue and $31.27 of adjusted EPS. The main questions are whether contract prices are still rising or have stabilised, how quickly HBM4 production is increasing, how much new capacity Micron plans to add, and how durable management believes its long-term supply agreements will be.

Closing note

Market data: Zerodha AfterMarket Report, 22 September 2026 close. Macro, corporate and feature: Mint, Mumbai print edition, 23 September 2026. This is a news aggregation brief. Not investment advice.