Daily Market News Update — 08th-09th September 2026

Midnight News Update: 08-09 Sep 2026

As the RBI rushes to manage the rupee liquidity from the FCNR(B) dollar swap, commercial banks that raised the deposits have another problem to worry about. Remember, the RBI is only giving a guarantee on the forex cover on the principal amount. There is still the interest cost, where it has to be paid in dollars, but the commercial banks have to manage the currency risk. For instance, assuming an average 6.5% interest payout, the total dollar cost for commercial banks will be more than $40 billion over 5 years. That exposure for the banks is still unhedged.

Indian equity brokers have seen robust client additions in the month of August, with Groww alone accounting for 44% of the client accretions. Groww also grew its market share to 29% by the end of Aug-26. For the top-10 brokers, August represented the best month in the last 6 months in terms of client accretions. In terms of sentiments, the return of FPIs and the massive FCNR(B) collections have led to return of confidence in Indian markets. Overall, 5,12,000 active clients were added in August. Apart from Groww; Angel added 85,000 and Zerodha added 35,000 clients.

FY26 was a month when India’s crude import dependence crossed 88.5%, but August 2026 also saw India’s diesel exports grow 67.6% yoy to $4.13 billion. In fact, India emerged as the key supplier of diesel to Europe in July; accounting for 60% of oil transiting through the Bab-al-Mandeb strait. Indian refiners have been working overtime, helped by huge global demand as well as higher gross refining margins (GRMs). The last 5 years have seen a steady fall in crude output in India, amid aging oil fields and maturing wells. India has been filling the Russian diesel gap in Europe.

If the pressure of quick commerce is visible clearly, it is in the bottom line of D-Mart. For FY26, D-Mart Ready saw its losses widening to ₹307 crore. Despite the rising threat of quick commerce, D-Mart has decided to cut its digital footprint (D-Mart Ready) from 24 cities to 11 cities. For D-Mart, the issue is not about the top line but the bottom line in quick commerce. For D-Mart, losses in quick commerce did not justify deep investment commitments. The focus of ecommerce shifts from scale to profitability. D-Mart still takes 6 hours to deliver the goods at home.

With copper prices rallying by 45% in the last one year, electronics companies are increasingly switching from copper to aluminium. Aluminium is also up 28% yoy, but that is still better than copper. Part of the rally has been triggered by rising demand from AI infrastructure. Data centres and cloud computing hardware use large amounts of copper for wiring and components. This has forced many white goods companies to shift from copper to aluminium. It gives better control over inputs costs. As India scales up its AI and Semicon ambitions, this is a real problem.

With Brent crude nearing $100/bbl amid rising tensions between the US and Iran, Indian oil marketing companies have taken a hit. The price of the 3 OMCs fell sharply by 3-4% this week on rising crude concerns. Higher crude prices are leading to compressed marketing margins as the end prices are still controlled due to being politically sensitive. Apart from the OMCs, even industries like paints and tyres that extensively use crude as inputs corrected this week. This week, Brent Crude touched an intraday high of $99.45/bbl, but has faced resistance at $100/bbl.

The latest data released by FADA indicates that the sharp spike in offtake of electrical vehicles (EV) is also borne out by the retail sales numbers. FADA collects data based on actual vehicle registrations, which is more reliable than the wholesale despatch data put out by SIAM. For August 2026, the growth in EV sales was led by two-wheelers which grew 67.1% yoy. Compared to Aug-25, even the sales of electric PVs were up over 50% yoy at 30,696 units in August 2026. Sharp growth was also seen in electrical 3-wheelers and electrical CV offtake in the month.

Specialized Investment Funds (SIFs) have attracted total flows of ₹22,328 crore since launch. In terms of risk and returns, the SIF is positioned somewhere between a traditional mutual fund and PMS. However, investors must also understand that these SIFs are allowed to do long-short strategies and can be higher on the risk scale. The SIFs will complete 2 years since launch in October 2026. Mutual fund advisors caution that SIFs cannot be seen as an alternative to traditional MF allocation for goals. Instead, the SIFs are more for satellite allocation in search of alpha.