Daily Market News Update - 21st-22nd October 2026

Midnight News Update: 21-22 Oct 2026

The Jio Platforms IPO saw a strong response on the first day. At close of Day-1, the IPO was already subscribed around 3.1 times. While the QIB portioned was already subscribed 9.4 times, the HNI / NII portion has been subscribed 1.68 times. The retail portion is yet to be fully subscribed. On Monday, the company had allotted shares worth ₹8,109 crore to a total of 212 anchor investors, a day ahead of the IPO opening. With strong institutional and non-institutional demand, the IPO of Jio Platforms is likely to see substantial oversubscription by close on Friday.

Core sector growth for September 2026 came in at a robust 7.94%, the best growth in the last 30 months. In addition, the August 2026 core sector number was also upped by 105 basis points from 4.84% to 5.89%. Due to this surge, the H1FY27 core sector growth has already crossed 5.1%. For the month of September, the positive thrust came from Electricity and Refinery Products. These 2 items have a combined weightage of over 52%; and both the items saw double-digit growth in September. However, crude oil, natural gas, and fertilizer output continued to contract.

The RBI MPC minutes reveal that there was almost a consensus on a 25-bps rate hike to counter the spike in inflation. All the 6 members were unanimous about the need to raise rates by 25-bps in October. However, with the regards to the stance of monetary policy, only 4 of the 6 members of the MPC voted to change the stance from “Neutral” to “Calibrated Tightening”; while the other 2 members preferred to maintain status quo. The broad consensus seems to be of one more rate hike in December, especially if headline consumer inflation gets beyond the 6% level.

The Indian rupee strengthened for the eighth consecutive day as the rupee appreciated to ₹94.45/$; a far cry from the shaky level of ₹97.50/$. The robust response from global institutions to the Jio Platforms IPO promises a surge in FPI flows through the primary market, which hardened the rupee. The surge in dollars with the RBI and its ability to continuously sell dollars to defend the rupee has also helped. However, further appreciation in the rupee may be capped due to continuing tensions in the Middle East, and Brent Crude going above $110/bbl.

Amidst the chaos in the overall market, one sector that has stood out as a beacon of hope is the IT sector. The Nifty IT index touched an 8-month high on Wednesday. The month of October has seen the IT index rally by nearly 16% after the stellar results announced by TCS earlier this month. In the first fortnight of October, IT has been the only sector to witness positive FPI flows, even as FPIs were net sellers of $5.04 billion in the first half of October. Indian IT stocks had lagged its global counterparts due to the AI-overhang, and that was gradually normalizing now.

High-profile investor (Marc Faber) believes that the bull run in India may be done and dusted. Faber prefers Indian bonds or sitting on cash over buying equities. He believes that the world is in a bear market for all risk assets, including equities. Also, with central banks tightening liquidity, the helicopter money era of the post-GFC period is coming to an end. Faber believes that indices may appear to outperform, but that is more because a handful of stocks can still drive up an index. In terms of strategy, Faber advocates a stock specific approach and focus on dividend yield plays.

According to a research note by Goldman Sachs, the copper supply crunch could push prices higher for some more time. Goldman cautioned that new copper mines take about 16 years or more to develop so new supply is not coming quickly. The constraint comes from falling discoveries, lower ore grades, and rising development costs. Sectors like EVs, alternate energy, defence and aerospace are triggering a surge in copper demand and supply is struggling to cope up. While there are some alternatives to copper, it is hard to fully get away from copper.

Major Indian NBFCs have flagged early signs of stress in their gold loan portfolios. Gold-backed loans have been the biggest growth driver for NBFCs in their consumer lending portfolios. For banks, the risk is quite low as it is back-to-back funding and prices have been on an uptrend. As of end August 2026, the total outstanding gold loans by banks and NBFCs stood at a whopping ₹9.20 trillion. The warning signals have come from Bajaj Finance and Piramal Finance. There was a rise in gold loans overdue for over 30 days. RBI curbs on revolving credit is an added risk.