Weekly Market Impact — for the week ending 17th July 2026

Weekly Capsule (Jul 13 – Jul 17) and Impact Analysis

Early signals hint at a slow start to the FCNR(B) deposit collections by banks

• With global rates already at elevated levels and chances of higher inflation, NRIs are not keen to lock into India deposits
• This is despite the fact that the RBI has allowed unlimited leverage to be offered by the banks to fund the NRIs deposits

India CPI inflation for June 2026 comes in sharply higher at 4.38% yoy

• The El Nino effects appears to be showing up with food inflation for June 2026 spiking from 4.78% to 5.32%
• Amid elevated oil prices and rising supply chain constraints, India reported imported inflation of nearly 8.1% in June 2026

Trade deficit for June 2026 higher at $30.4 billion versus $28.2 billion in May

• Both exports and imports were lower on a comparable yoy basis due to the shipping routes being impacted by the war
• Services surplus for the month of June 2026 could only offset about 50% of the merchandise trade deficit overall

Trump is now considering a full-fledged naval blockade of Iran, cutting supplies

• Earlier, Trump had planned to charge protection money at the Straits of Hormuz, but has shelved such plans for now
• Iran is not talking it lying down as it retaliated with attacks on US facilities across the Gulf, as well as USS Abraham Lincoln

Like the retail inflation, even wholesale inflation (WPI), is up 9.87% for June

• The headline WPI inflation is the highest in the last 27 months, led by fuel inflation and food inflation at producer prices
• Manufacturing inflation is up at 7.48%, clearly showing that the impact is starting to show on industrial input prices too

The IPO of SBI Funds Management gets subscribed 41.66 times at close

• Total collections for the IPO in terms of investor interest was at ₹2.98 trillion, making it the fifth biggest IPO by response
• Bulk of the oversubscription came from the institutions, with the QIB quota getting subscribed more than 140 times

SEBI tightens code of conduct for whole time members (WTM) compliance

• The new code has more stringent conflict of interest norms, curbs on direct stock buying, and post-retirement restrictions
• WTMs will be required to either liquidate or freeze such investments for their SEBI tenure; apart from disclosures

Bharti Airtel to expand its focus to data centres, cloud, and fintech services

• While cloud and data centres will be supported by their telecom infrastructure, fintech will leverage customer base
• Bharti Airtel has already invested close to ₹3.30 trillion into its digital infrastructure, while core telecom focus will continue

Niti Aayog highlights the opportunity of $300 billion patent expiries by 2030

• The massive patent expiries offer India an opportunity to elevate the pharma platform beyond traditional APIs
• With Biologics accounting for 40% of medicines sold globally, these patent expiries open up a big scale-up opportunity

FPIs net sell $(336) million in equities in the week; net buy $1.25 billion in July

• However, for calendar year 2026 till date, FPIs continue to be net sellers in equities to the tune of a massive $(28.03) billion
• However, FPIs have infused $1.1 billion in debt in July, and $8.0 billion in 2026 so far; but flows have slowed since June

USDINR stayed above ₹96.20/$ for the week as it reflected geopolitical risk

• This is rather disappointing for the RBI as the rupee had hardened to ₹94/$ on FCNR(B) measures announced
• However, global banks like Barclays expect the actual FCNR(B) flows to be just about 35% to 40% of what the RBI is targeting

Brent Crude oil spikes from $71.50/bbl to $88.35/bbl since the start of July

• With the US resuming hostilities on Iran, the Straits of Hormuz remains blocked and that is again disrupting India oil supplies
• Despite India diversifying its oil procurement, the average cost per barrel has spiralled by more than $10/bbl in July alone

Spot gold takes support at $4,000/oz, while spot silver gets support at $55/oz

• Spot gold is now down -28.2% from January peak prices, while spot silver is down a full -54.5% from January peak levels
• However, Indian rupee prices of gold and silver have fallen much lesser due to support from a weakening Indian rupee

FPIs sell 1.46% stake in Reliance in Q1, reducing stake to 10-year low of 17.1%

• During the same period, the promoters, domestic financial institutions, and retail investors increased their stake in RIL
• The fall in FPI holdings is in tune with the broader trend, where FPIs have been selling India and buying Korea / Taiwan

Smartphone shipments out of India have fallen by 10% in June quarter

• This is largely because the 15% memory chip inflation in the quarter has pushed up handset prices of affordable phones
• The fall in sales was most evident in the mass market phone segment (under ₹15,000), which saw demand fall by -45%

CRISIL sees volatile FY27, with low GDP growth and high consumer inflation

• Despite easing geopolitical tensions and lower prices of oil, CRISIL expects retail inflation for FY27 closer to 5.1%.
• With GDP growth tapering from 7.7% to 6.6%, CRISIL expects the RBI to hike rates in the financial year to curb inflation

Waaree Energies commences 5.15 GWh BESS plant in the state of Gujarat

• Battery energy storage systems (BESS) is emerging as the next big growth frontier if renewable energy has to be scaled up
• Waaree Energies will start with an initial BESS capacity of 5.15 GWh, but scale it up to 20 GWh for more self sufficiency

As investors turn cautious, private equity deal cycles lengthen sharply

• The widening deal cycles reflect greater due diligence by investors, navigating of bid-ask spreads, and stress testing
• In several new technology areas like energy, defence, AI, space science etc; the ROI models are not yet fully tested

Vedanta Ltd has laid out its growth strategy post the demerger of units

• Vedanta will double production of aluminium, zinc, copper and also leverage AI and strategic minerals exploration
• In oil and gas alone, Vedanta will invest closer to $5 billion to take its capacity up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd)

US wants to penalize buyers of Russian oil like India and China with tariffs

• The original proposed tariff was 500%, which has been scaled down to 100%, intending to squeeze Moscow’s oil revenues
• Ironically, this legislation will exclude Europe, which continues to import gas from Russia; targeting only India and China

Reliance Industries posts double-digit growth, beating street in all verticals

• Quarterly revenues were up 25% on sequential basis, even as EBITDA and net profits touched a record in Q1FY27
• Double-digit growth in O2C, retail, and digital; but net profits fell yoy due to capital gains from Asian Paints sale in Q1FY26