Weekly Market Impact — for the week ending on 18th September 2026

Weekly Capsule (Sep 14 – Sep 18) and Impact Analysis

Tata Sons passes resolution to appoint N Chandrasekharan as next chairman

• Interestingly, Chandrasekharan had already opted out of the race, and this decision was only opposed by Noel Tata
• The Tata Sons Board also resolved to prepare for the listing of Tata Sons, as necessitated by the recent RBI decision

Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, has declared both resolutions null and void

• As the chairman of Tata Trusts, Noel Tata still has the powers to overrule the decisions taken by the Tata Sons board
• However, for that to happen, the Charity Commissioner has to lift the ban on the Sir Ratan Tata Trust convening its AGM

Brent Crude got closer to $110/bbl this week, but closed lower at $103.63/bbl

• Due to the continued uncertainty in the Straits of Hormuz and Houthi attacks on Bab-al-Mandeb, oil movement is impacted
• With heating demand expected to pick up in winter, there are also concerns over China drawing down heavily on its SPR

Along expected lines, the US Fed hiked repo rates by 25 bps to 3.75%-4.00%

• Kevin Warsh underlined that inflation being above target for too long had tilted the mandate to focus on price stability
• The vote in favour of a rate hike was unanimous at 12:0, and CME Fedwatch is hinting at one more rate hike in Dec-26

FOMC projections of macros hints at stable growth and sharp fall in inflation

• Between 2026 and 2028, US real GDP growth is expected at over 2.1%, while unemployment is likely to be steady at 4.1%
• In these 3 years, inflation is projected to come down sharply from 3.7% to 2.1%; with Fed rates peaking at 4.00%-4.25%

EQT AB of Sweden plans a $50 billion PE investment in India in next 4 years

• The corpus of $50 billion is likely to be allocated to sectors like artificial intelligence (AI), data centres, and green energy
• EQT sees a huge PE opportunity in India as the number of quality projects do not have adequate risk funding options

NSE sees subdued start to subscription with 1.16X subscription after 2 days

• The issue closes for subscription on Monday, but anchor book had seen a robust response with ₹6,746 crore collected
• The QIB segment and the HNI segment subscriptions are expected to pick up volumes only on the last day of the IPO

Government permits MDR of up to 0.4% on high value UPI transactions

• The levy will be only on person-to-merchant (P2M) and not on person-to-person (P2P) fund transfers via the UPI mode
• The rates will be much lower for equity trades, mutual funds, and insurance premium payments; but will still push up costs

NPCIL clarifies that MDR on UPI will be imposed on merchants not users

• However, it is very likely that merchants will devise ways to pass on these added costs to the consumers indirectly
• According to NPCIL, 95% of transactions, by volume, will be outside the purview of UPI MDR, so burden will be limited

India merchandise trade deficit for August 2026 narrows to $26.86 billion

• While exports were flat over last month, the total imports fell sharply in August due to a steep fall in gold imports
• For the month, the services surplus stood at $17.45 billion, which was good enough to offset about 65% of goods deficit

RBI files a caveat with the Bombay High Court on Tata CIC registration ruling

• This caveat ensures that if Tatas approach the court against the RBI ruling, then RBI will be first heard before a decision
• Thus, the court cannot pass any ruling ex-parte in favour of Tatas; although such a caveat shows that RBI is worried

India’s current account deficit (CAD) for July 2026 doubled yoy to $7 billion

• The spike in the current account deficit (CAD) was largely on account of higher merchandise trade deficit in the month
• The situation was partly salvaged by higher services surplus as well as nearly $13.2 billion coming in by way of net transfers

CPI inflation for August 2026 spiked to 4.82% from 4.45% in the month of July

• The higher headline inflation was triggered by food inflation at 5.95%, largely driven by rural food inflation at 6.13% in Aug-26
• Apart from higher oil prices, the impact of supply chain constraints was seen in core inflation spiking 30 bps to 4.2%

USDINR weakened sharply to close the week at ₹96.04/$ on Fed hawkishness

• The rate hike by the Fed is likely to further reduce the attraction of investing in India for foreign portfolio investors
• Combined with the spike in oil prices, rupee stayed under pressure, despite $133 billion of FCNR(B) scheme inflows

FPIs were net sellers of $(817) million in the truncated week ending 18-Sep

• For the month of September till date, FPIs have been net sellers in Indian equities to the tune of $(2.20) billion
• In addition, FPIs also sold Indian bonds worth $(1.63) billion, leading to overall FPI net selling in September of $(3.83) billion

Gold recovers to $4,385/oz, while Spot silver also bounced to $66.54/oz

• While the rate hike by the Fed led to panic selling in gold and silver, the recovery was more due to geopolitical uncertainty
• Also, both gold and silver, are still much below their January peaks, so value buying seems to be coming in at every dip

Trump signs Russia Sanctions Bill; which can result in 100% tariffs for India

• The only exemption given is for countries importing less than 15% of Russian gas exports; mainly to protect EU nations
• However, the 100% tariffs in India’s case will not be automatic but the executive branch can apply on a case-to-case basis

FY27 direct tax collections up 13% at ₹12.12 trillion; STT flows up 53% yoy

• Gross corporate tax collections stood at ₹6.95 trillion, while individual / HUF tax collections for FY27 were ₹6.98 trillion
• Even as traders and investors struggle to make sense of the market, STT inflows for FY27 were up 53% at ₹40,214 crore

Flipkart Minutes, the Q-Commerce arm, expanded to 1,000 stores in 130 cities

• On an average, each of its dark stores are processing anywhere between 1,000 to 1,100 orders on a daily basis
• With Flipkart minutes becoming a standalone app, the parent is also preparing for substantial marketing spends on the app

Bharat Forge Ltd has set the floor price for its QIP issue at ₹1,947.70 per share

• The final QIP price will be decided in consultation with the lead managers and can offer up to a 5% discount to investors
• Bharat Forge makes forged and machined components for the automotive, defence, aerospace, railways, and energy sectors

FMCG distributors are seeking Zero MDR on retail UPI transactions

• The Association (AICPDF) has written to the prime minister stating that falling margins could impact thin retail margins
• AICPDF also argued that since the merchants have to bear the cost, it would make most small retail businesses unviable