Sensex Jumps 879 Points, Nifty Reclaims 22,500: IT Stocks Lead Rebound After 8-Week Losing Run

If you watched the Indian stock market today, you probably ended the day smiling, finally. After eight straight weeks of the market grinding lower, the BSE Sensex jumped 879.09 points to close at 72,472.33, and the NSE Nifty 50 climbed 288.65 points to settle at 22,520.45, up 1.30%. This is the Nifty’s biggest single-day gain in about two months, and it came right when everyone needed some good news.

Two things drove today’s rally. First, IT stocks had a cracking day after Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported a strong set of September-quarter numbers, with net profit rising around 15% to ₹13,884 crore. Second, crude oil prices cooled off after US President Donald Trump said there would be no military action against Iran before the November midterm elections, which calmed nerves about oil supply getting disrupted through the Middle East. Put those two together, and you had a market that was oversold after weeks of selling finally bouncing back hard.

Before we go further, a quick note for anyone newer to investing: NSE stands for the National Stock Exchange, which is where the Nifty 50 is calculated, and BSE stands for the Bombay Stock Exchange, home to the Sensex. Both are just different measuring sticks for how the overall Indian share market is doing on a given day, and they usually move together, like they did today.

Market At A Glance

Here’s how the key indices closed today:

Note: exact closing index levels for Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 weren’t published by the sources we checked at the time of writing, so only the confirmed percentage moves are shown above.

Why The Market Moved

If you’re new to tracking the Indian stock market, here’s the simple version of today’s story. The market had been falling for eight weeks in a row, something that hasn’t happened since 2001, because of a mix of worries: foreign investors (FIIs) kept pulling money out, crude oil stayed stubbornly high, global bond yields were rising, and the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) raised its repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50% earlier this week, its first rate hike since February 2023. The repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends money to banks, so when it goes up, loans for everything from home EMIs to business borrowing tend to get a little costlier, and that usually makes the market nervous in the short term.

So why did all that suddenly reverse today? Mainly because two of the biggest worry points eased a bit at the same time. Crude oil, which matters hugely for India because we import most of what we use, slipped below $103 a barrel after trading above $105 just a day earlier. When oil gets cheaper, India’s oil import bill comes down, which is good news for the rupee and for inflation, since fuel costs flow into the price of almost everything else. On top of that, Trump’s comment ruling out an attack on Iran before the US midterms took some of the fear out of the market about oil supplies getting choked off through the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for Middle East crude. With that pressure easing, investors who had been sitting on the sidelines or shorting the market rushed back in to buy stocks that had gotten cheap, what traders call a “relief rally” with a good amount of short covering.

Which Sectors Held Up, And Which Didn’t

Today was a genuinely broad-based rally, with pretty much every sector ending in the green except one. Here’s how the major sectors stacked up:

If you’re holding IT stocks, today was clearly your day; the sector jumped over 3%, by far the best performer, riding on TCS’s strong results and renewed optimism about AI-related spending boosting revenues for Indian software exporters going forward. FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods, think everyday items like soap, biscuits and packaged food) also did well, up 2.2%, with ITC among the biggest gainers. Banking held up solidly too, with PSU banks (government-owned banks like SBI, Canara Bank and Indian Bank) actually outperforming private banks today. The only sector that closed lower was oil & gas, down a modest 0.09%, which makes sense since falling crude prices usually hurt the profit margins of companies that explore and produce oil. We couldn’t independently confirm separate closing figures for Pharma, Realty, Energy, Defence and Consumer Durables indices today, though broader reports described “all other sectoral indices” as closing in positive territory alongside the ones listed above.

Today’s Top Movers

Breadth was genuinely strong today: of the 50 stocks in the Nifty 50, 46 advanced and only 4 declined, with none unchanged. That’s about as one-sided a day as you’ll see.

Top gainers:

Apollo Hospitals topped the gainers’ list, up nearly 4.72%, followed closely by ITC and Eicher Motors. TCS and HCL Technologies rounded out the top five, both riding the IT sector’s strong showing.

Top losers:

With only four Nifty 50 stocks closing lower today, there’s genuinely no fifth loser to report, that’s how strong the overall rally was. BSE Ltd (the stock of the exchange operator itself) led the declines, down 1.43%, while Reliance Industries, JSW Steel and Cipla saw only mild cuts. If you’re holding Reliance or JSW Steel, don’t read too much into today’s small dip; both are still well within their recent trading ranges.

What FIIs and DIIs Were Doing

Quick explainer if you’re new to this: FII stands for Foreign Institutional Investor, basically big foreign funds that buy and sell Indian stocks, and DII stands for Domestic Institutional Investor, which includes Indian mutual funds, insurance companies and similar large local investors. Tracking what these two groups are doing with their money each day gives you a sense of who’s driving the market.

Today’s official FII/DII cash-segment numbers for October 9 hadn’t been released at the time of writing; this data usually comes out from the exchanges late in the evening after markets close, so check back tomorrow for today’s exact figures. Here’s what we do have, the last five confirmed trading sessions:

The pattern here is pretty clear and has been the story of this entire corrective phase: FIIs have been net sellers every single day, and DIIs, powered partly by continued SIP (mutual fund Systematic Investment Plan) inflows from retail investors like you, have been stepping in and buying almost as much as FIIs sold, cushioning the market from a much sharper fall. If you’ve got a running SIP, this is a good example of why it matters, that steady domestic buying is quietly supporting the market even when foreign money is heading out the door.

Oil, The Rupee, And Global Cues

Brent crude (the international oil benchmark, priced in US dollars per barrel, since oil is a globally dollar-priced commodity) settled around $102.82 a barrel, down about 1.4% on the day, easing from above $105 just a day earlier. The drop came mainly on reduced fears of a US-Iran military escalation after Trump’s midterm-timeline comment, though Iran’s continued refusal to budge on its uranium enrichment programme means this is being read as a pause in tension rather than any real resolution.

The rupee also had a good day, strengthening 16 paise to close at 96.72 against the US dollar, compared to Thursday’s close of 96.88. A stronger rupee and softer oil tend to go hand in hand for India: since we import roughly 85% of our crude needs, cheaper oil in dollar terms directly reduces the dollars we need to send abroad, which takes some pressure off the rupee. There were also reports of likely RBI intervention in the currency market to support the rupee near these levels. On global cues, European markets were broadly higher (Germany’s DAX and UK’s FTSE both up around 1%), and US futures pointed to a positive opening on Wall Street, even as concerns about stretched AI-related valuations in US tech stocks continued to simmer in the background.

What To Watch Tomorrow

The big one to watch is India’s CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation data due on Monday, which will be the market’s next big cue on where interest rates go from here, especially after the RBI’s rate hike earlier this week. Keep an eye on whether the FII selling streak, which has now run for 10 straight sessions, finally breaks; a pause there could extend today’s rally, while continued outflows could cap the upside. Crude oil prices and any fresh Iran-related headlines are also worth tracking, since today’s whole rally was built substantially on oil cooling off, and that story can reverse quickly if tensions flare up again. On the earnings front, more IT and banking majors are due to report their September-quarter results over the coming days, so expect stock-specific action to pick up. This is general market information to help you understand what’s happening and isn’t investment advice, so do your own research or speak to a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.