Foreign portfolio investors kept pulling money from Indian equities through Thursday’s session, helping push the Nifty 50 down 198.5 points to 22,421.95 and extending a weekly losing run that traders now describe as the longest in a quarter-century.
The BSE Sensex closed 570.59 points lower at 71,909.70, recovering part of a midday slide that briefly wiped out roughly Rs 9 lakh crore in market value, according to session reports. With Gandhi Jayanti closing markets on Friday, the Thursday print is the last cash benchmark investors will trade before the Reserve Bank of India’s policy committee convenes on Monday.
Sector scorecard
Auto stocks led the decline, with the Nifty Auto index falling 3.46 percent as September sales updates disappointed. Fast-moving consumer goods and metals followed, while information technology was the lone major gainer, rising 2.17 percent as a weaker rupee improved export billing optics for services exporters.
Market breadth stayed negative: about 2,574 NSE stocks fell against 1,023 advancers. The India VIX volatility gauge climbed roughly 7 percent to a more than three-month high, reflecting hedging demand ahead of the RBI decision due on 7 October.
Macro headwinds
Selling matched a familiar macro bundle—Brent crude back above $100, U.S. Treasury yields at multi-decade highs, and a rupee that weakened to about 96.315 per dollar on Thursday, its sharpest single-day drop in more than two months. Portfolio managers said the combination narrows the rate differential that had attracted carry flows into Indian bonds and equities earlier in the year.
Over the week ended Thursday, the Sensex lost about 2.6 percent and the Nifty more than 3 percent, compounding losses that have built through September. Domestic mutual funds continued to provide offsetting buys, but not enough to neutralize foreign sales that brokers estimate at roughly $4.45 billion since the previous Friday in some bank research notes cited this week.
Policy week ahead
Economists widely expect the RBI to raise the repo rate by 25 basis points from 5.25 percent, the first increase since early 2023. A hawkish statement could lift bond yields further, raising the discount rate equity investors apply to long-duration growth stocks.
For now, the market’s message is simpler: global risk appetite is thin, and India’s liquidity premium is no longer enough to keep foreign money parked in index heavyweights. Until crude, the dollar and the RBI provide a clearer path, traders say dips are more likely to be sold than bought—even after eight red weeks on the clock.