Weekly Market Impact — for the week ending on 24th April 2026

Weekly Capsule (Apr 20 – Apr 24) and Impact Analysis

Finance Minister calls on bank chiefs to be prepared for Claude Mythos risks

• A high-level meeting was held after Anthropic Claude Mythos highlighted vulnerabilities in the security of Operating Systems
• Nirmala Sitharaman has asked banks and RBI to safeguard banking systems, customer data, and funds of depositors

SBI Life shifts to open architecture multi-channel distribution strategy

• This means that SBI Life will be relying less on SBI banking channel to generate bancassurance business for SBI Life
• Government is planning to change rules to stop exclusive bancassurance; and focus banks on deposit mobilization

Government rules out hike in petrol and diesel, even after state elections

• The government admitted that OMCs were losing ₹100/litre on diesel and ₹20/litre on petrol due to static market prices
• While government hiked the prices of ATF, premium fuels, and LPG; it has kept petrol and diesel static to contain inflation

Reliance Industries reported ₹16,971 crore net profit and ₹6 DPS for Q4FY26

• The O2C business has seen a rise in margins on the back of higher oil prices due to the crisis in the Middle East
• However, sales and net profits were lower on a sequential basis as the gross refining margins (GRMs) got impacted

Rupee weakens by 1.43% for the week to ₹94.25/$ on crude oil price spike

• With crude surging by 20% for the week to $107/bbl, and FPIs continuing to sell in equities, rupee fall was almost inevitable
• The Rupee had recovered sharply after the RBI had imposed NOF limits on banks and curbed speculation against Rupee

Sensex dipped nearly 1,200 points on Friday amid rising geopolitical risks

• The continued uncertainty in the US-Iran war led to crude spiking to $106/bbl and FPIs intensified selling in equities
• The trigger for selling came in the last few days after IT companies lowered their sales guidance for FY27 significantly

RBI MPC minutes highlighted that the risk of stagflation was gradually rising

• In the April policy, RBI MPC held rates at 5.5%, but the minutes showed the sense of concern among MPC members
• Inflation continues to be the big risk factor, amid rising fuel prices and the Kharif risk due to El Nino causing deficient rain

Life insurers saw new business premia (NBP) rise 16% to ₹4.60 trillion in FY26

• The sharp spike in life insurance premium collections came after the government scrapped GST on life insurance premia
• While the new tax regime (NTR) had slowed the demand for life insurance, the GST cuts have revived life insurance story

Content created by AI will now require clear and unambiguous SGI labelling

• Web content must clearly demarcate synthetically generated information (SGI) and cannot pass it as curated content
• With rising use of AI for content creation, SGI labelling is likely to put the onus on content companies to focus on originality

For the second time in FY26, March core sector output contracted

• The -0.44% contraction in Mar-26 core sector was led by fertilizers contracting -24.6% as supply chains tightened
• Natural gas output expanded 6.36%, after 21 months of negative reading, as domestic gas output was increased

FY26 trade deficit of $332 billion led by sharply rising prices of gold and silver

• Despite gold and silver volumes being flat to lower, the value of gold and silver imports increased by $21.9 billion in FY26
• In calendar year 2025 alone, gold prices had surged by 72%, while silver prices had surged by more than 150%

Vedanta fixes May 01, 2026 as the record date (RD) for group demerger

• Investors not holding shares will have to buy shares of Vedanta by 29-April to be eligible for the demerged shares
• For each share of Vedanta Ltd, eligible shareholders will get 4 additional shares of aluminium, steel, oil, and power business

Gold eased to $4,724/oz, and silver also eased to $75.92/oz

• With the rising uncertainty over the Straits of Hormuz, higher inflation risks impacted the price of gold and silver this week
• The strength in the US dollar in the week has also been a key factor in depressing the prices of gold and silver this week

FPIs were marginal sellers for the week, but selling was heavy in last 2 days

• FPI selling was led by the stalemate in the Middle East and Brent Crude prices rising to $107/bbl during the week
• The sharp weakening of the rupee to ₹94.20/$ also led to an accelerated sell-off in equities by FPIs in the last two days

Indian exporters eyeing $12 billion of tariff refunds, after Court ruling

• With the court striking down Trump’s $166 billion tariff frame work, acceptance of refund applications has already started
• Nearly $8 billion out of the $12 billion tariff impact came from the textiles/apparel sector and the engineering goods sector

SBI Research pegs FY27 fiscal deficit at 4.6% of GDP, against budgeted 4.3%

• The 30 bps higher fiscal deficit in FY27 would be triggered by higher subsidies, excise cuts, and other support measures
• The estimate is that the fiscal deficit would be 4.6% at $85/bbl of crude oil; but will rise to 4.8% at $105/bbl crude price

India non-fossil power capacity touches 53% but fossil fuels anchor the grid

• There is a big gap between power capacity and actual power dependence due to storage gaps and transmission hurdles
• Even within the renewable energy segment, there is a predominance of solar energy; while others are marginal

L&T enters industrial electronics space with manufacturing unit in Coimbatore

• L&T’s foray into B2B Industrial Electronics will have 2 factory lines offering these services to its Indian and global clients
• The focus will be on industrial electronics, mobility, industrial robotics & automation, communication platforms and ESDM

GMR Airport promoters to buy 7.3% stake in the company from ADP, France

• GMR promoters will pay ₹10,100 crore as ADP, France will reduce its stake in GMR Airports from 32.3% to 25.0%
• Consequently, the promoters of GMR Airports will increase their stake in the company from 34.9% to 42.2% post-deal

IndusInd Bank reported a sharp turn-around in net profits to ₹594 crore

• IndusInd Bank had reported a loss of ₹(2,329) crore in the year ago period on the back of heavy loss write-offs of bad assets
• Under the leadership of Rajiv Anand, IndusInd Bank also saw a 40% increase in the net interest income (NII) on yoy basis

RBI cancels banking license of Paytm Payments Bank effective immediately

• Paytm PB has to stop all banking activity immediately and must also repay deposits on winding up of the bank
• Earlier, RBI had barred Paytm PB from onboarding new clients and had later barred all deposit and credit transactions too