Sunday edition. Indian markets last traded on Thursday, October 1 & reopen Monday; Friday was the Gandhi Jayanti holiday. This edition covers Saturday's unusually busy exchange-filing window (the September-quarter business updates arrived in a wave), the weekend's policy & global developments, & the shape of a heavy week: the RBI's rate decision Wednesday, OPEC+ meeting today, four listings Monday & TCS opening the results season Thursday.
Snapshot: Commodities, Rates & Macro
| Item | Level | Move | One-line note |
|---|
| Gold (spot) | $4,140.19/oz | 2nd weekly fall, about 2% | Friday close; the post-payrolls spike to ~$4,216 faded the same day |
| Silver (spot) | $60.37/oz | Week: about -5% | Sharper weekly fall than gold; industrial-demand doubts added to rate maths |
| Brent crude (Dec) | $102.25/bbl | ~flat Friday | Whipsawed to ~$99 on the G7 100-mn-bbl release news, then recovered; OPEC+ meets today |
| WTI crude | $91.11/bbl | -1.7% Friday | US grades weaker than Brent; the squeeze is in products (diesel), not crude |
| US 10-year Treasury | 5.28% | +12 bp on the week | Dipped to ~5.2% after weak payrolls, then sold off again: supply fears outweigh rate relief |
| India 10-year G-sec | 7.21% | Thursday close | Priced for a close rate call Wednesday; polls lean toward a 25 bp hike to 5.50% |
| USD/INR | 96.31 | Thursday close | Offshore (NDF) market closed Friday at ~96.489, so Monday's open leans weaker |
| Macro diary | No new data this weekend | | Next releases: US ISM services Monday night IST; RBI MPC decision Wednesday ~10 AM |
The Big Picture: a shut market, a loud week ahead
- Where does the market stand after eight straight losing weeks? The Nifty closed Thursday at 22,421.95 (-0.88% on the day, -3.1% on the week), its eighth consecutive weekly decline, with the Sensex at 71,909.70. Foreign investors sold a net Rs. 44,013 crore of Indian equities in September, against Rs. 76,030 crore of domestic institutional buying. The weekly numbers tell the same story in miniature: Rs. 34,966 crore of foreign selling in just the four sessions ended Thursday, a seventh straight weekly outflow, absorbed almost one-for-one by domestic funds. The market is being held up by Indian savings while foreign selling accelerated into month-end: roughly two-thirds of September's outflow came in those final four sessions.
- Why did nothing trade since Thursday, & why does Monday still matter? India was shut Friday (Gandhi Jayanti) & the weekend followed, so Monday reopens with three days of accumulated news: the Saturday filing wave covered in Company News below, Friday's weak US jobs report (29,000 jobs added versus 85,000-90,000 expected), & whatever OPEC+ decides today. Friday's US session is the only overseas trading cue available: the S&P 500 rose 0.73% to 7,722.72 & the Nasdaq 1.19% to 27,190.86 as the weak jobs data pushed the odds of an October Fed hike down to roughly one-in-five, though the 10-year Treasury yield still finished the week 12 basis points higher at 5.28%. Equities read the weak jobs number as rate relief; the bond market read the week as a supply problem that has not gone away.
- What are the three scheduled events that will set this week's direction? First, OPEC+ meets online today, with delegates signalling a rollover (November output quotas unchanged); with Brent at $102 & the Strait of Hormuz still effectively shut, a surprise either way moves everything from oil marketing companies to the rupee. Second, the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee starts its meeting Monday & announces Wednesday around 10 AM; a Reuters poll has 35 of 61 economists expecting a 25-basis-point hike to 5.50%, & SBI Research & Bank of America both published hike calls this weekend, with BofA pencilling in a full 100 basis points of tightening by mid-2027. Third, TCS reports Thursday evening & opens the September-quarter results season in a market that has been falling for two months. Wednesday is the single densest day: the RBI decision at 10 AM & the US Fed's meeting minutes at 11:30 PM IST, twelve hours apart.
- What changed over the weekend itself? Two things worth knowing. Iranian officials were reported Saturday (The National, citing a Tehran source) to be preparing for a "major round of fighting" after nuclear talks in New York ended without a breakthrough; a third US carrier group is heading to the region. That is single-source reporting, but it is consistent with the stalled-talks picture & with tankers being hit near Hormuz twice last week. & at home, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra, speaking Saturday at the Kautilya Economic Conclave three days before his own rate decision, attributed hardening global bond yields to government & AI-led private spending ("money is scarce, spending has increased") & added that global interest rates affect India through real interest rates, "something that we need to take care of". Read plainly, that is a governor acknowledging the external pressure on Indian rates rather than waving it away.