Monday, before the open: the first session after the long weekend, with the MPC meeting starting today, four mainboard listings, an OPEC+ rollover, Houthi claims of strikes on Saudi Aramco sites, & a long weekend around which both of India's two largest private banks settled their CEO successions.
A note for free readers: this Monday edition is your one free full brief of the week.
Snapshot: Commodities, Rates & Macro
| Item | Level | Move | One-line note |
|---|
| Gold (spot) | ~$4,192/oz Fri close; firmer Mon AM | firmer | Futures +0.6% Monday as rate-hike bets fade after weak US payrolls |
| Silver (spot) | ~$61.2-61.5/oz Fri close | futures +2.1% Mon | Rate-relief bid returning after a choppy week |
| Brent crude (Dec) | $101.6/bbl Mon 8:15 AM IST | -0.6% | Spiked to ~$103 overnight on Houthi-Aramco claims, then faded on supply relief |
| WTI crude | $90.5-91.6/bbl Mon AM | mixed quotes | Same whipsaw as Brent; G7 reserve release weighing |
| US 10-year Treasury | 5.24% Asia Mon (5.28% Fri close) | easing | Thursday's 5.34% was the highest since 2002; payrolls pulled it back |
| India 10-year G-sec | 7.21% Thu close | highest since Apr 2024 | MPC decision Wednesday; a 25bp increase is the consensus |
| USD/INR | 96.31 Thu close; offshore 96.489 Fri | weaker bias | Two-month low; offshore trading points to a softer open |
| Macro due today | US ISM services (Sept), tonight | ~55 expected | No Indian data release today; services PMI lands Tuesday, MPC Wednesday |
The Big Picture
- A gap-up open after the long weekend, into the heaviest policy week of the quarter. GIFT Nifty traded around 22,617-22,662 this morning, pointing to an opening gain of roughly half to one per cent over Thursday's Nifty close of 22,421.95. The cue is Friday's Wall Street session: September US payrolls came in at just 29,000 jobs added against a consensus of about 90,000, traders slashed the odds of an October Federal Reserve rate increase to roughly a fifth, & the S&P 500 rose 0.73% while the Nasdaq added 1.19%. Japan's Nikkei is up about 2.6% this morning on the same logic; South Korea & mainland China are shut for holidays.
- Why one strong morning does not settle anything. The indices have fallen for eight consecutive weeks, the longest weekly losing streak in 25 years, with foreign investors pulling out roughly Rs 3 lakh crore from Indian equities in the first nine months of 2026, more than any full calendar year on record. Last week alone foreign investors sold Rs 34,966 crore of cash-market equity while domestic institutions bought Rs 33,455 crore. A 100-point gap-up changes none of that arithmetic; what can change it is this week's policy calendar.
- The three-day MPC meeting starts today. The Monetary Policy Committee, the RBI's six-member rate-setting body, meets today through Wednesday; the decision lands Wednesday around 10 am. A newspaper poll last week found 8 of 10 economists expect the repo rate to rise 25 basis points to 5.50%, & a separate wire poll of 61 economists had 57% expecting the same, which would be the first repo rate increase since February 2023. August retail inflation was 4.8% & the RBI's own projection has it at 5.9% in the December quarter. Swap-market pricing suggests investors are bracing for a cycle of increases rather than one move, so Wednesday's real information is the guidance, not the move itself. The GST Council also meets Wednesday on compliance-process reforms, so Indian policy has two set-pieces on one day, plus the US Federal Reserve publishes the minutes of its September meeting the same evening.
- Oil had a nervous weekend. OPEC+ met Sunday & rolled its November production targets over unchanged, as signalled. Hours later Yemen's Houthis claimed ballistic-missile & drone attacks on Saudi Aramco sites near Riyadh & Khurais; Brent spiked to about $103 in early Asian trade, then faded to about $101.6 by 8:15 am IST as reports showed West Asian crude exports back at pre-war levels & the G7's 100-million-barrel reserve release got moving. The claim matters more than the price action: if Saudi production facilities themselves are now targets, the war's supply risk is no longer confined to the Strait of Hormuz.
- Today's crowded corporate calendar. Four mainboard listings (Orient Cables, German Green Steel, AceVector, Runwal Enterprises), Ola Electric's board fixes the terms of its Rs 1,000 crore rights issue, Cholamandalam's quarterly business update is expected today or tomorrow, & the results season proper opens Thursday with TCS. The substance around the long weekend was in people, not deals: HDFC Bank & Kotak Mahindra Bank both settled their CEO successions within 48 hours of each other, & both picked outsiders.