Nifty slips 0.4% to 22,600 and ends the week down 2.4% as small caps fall 2.8%; Brent near $115

A higher open, a deep slide, a partial recovery. Nifty opened with a 54-point gap up at 22,742, tracking a cooldown in US bond yields, but came under immediate selling pressure as oil prices kept climbing. It fell below 22,700 within 20 minutes, toward 22,600 by 10 AM and below 22,500 around 10:15 AM. Brief recoveries toward 22,530 and 22,510 faded, and the index slid to an intraday low near 22,370 around 12:45 PM. Buying then emerged from the lows, and a sharp rebound after 1:30 PM took Nifty toward 22,590. It oscillated between 22,500 and 22,570 for much of the afternoon, dipped below 22,500 again around 2:30 PM, and recovered sharply in the final minutes to close at 22,600, about 140 points below its open.

• Oil above $114: Brent rose to about $115 a barrel intraday, its highest since May 4, after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia raised concerns over Middle Eastern energy supplies. Brent futures were up 1.2% at $114.57 and US crude 1.5% at $100.95.

• Smaller companies hit hardest: Over 20 sessions, Next 50 is down 9.2%, Midcap 150 10.2%, Smallcap 250 11.0% and Microcap 250 11.1%, against 3.6% for the Nifty 50. Over five sessions, Smallcap 250 has fallen 7.0%.

• Valuations: Nifty 50 trades at 19.1x trailing earnings and Next 50 at 17.1x, both near their lowest since April 2021. Midcap 150 is at 26.4x, lower than on 73% of days, and Smallcap 250 at 31.2x — still higher than on 70% of days and above its five-year median of 28.9x, but coming down.

• Where the options market is positioned: Call writing strengthened, pulling the put-call ratio down from 0.88 to 0.81, and implied volatility rose from 14.2% to 14.7%. Options imply a range of about 22,292 to 22,846 into the October 27 expiry, with the largest put positions at 21,500 and call positions at 24,000. The AMR sees the 20-day average, at 22,714, as the first major hurdle.

• Commodities: By 18:53 IST MCX crude was up 1.8% at ₹9,651; natural gas fell 3.7% and is down 17.6% over 20 sessions. Gold slipped 0.2% to ₹1,43,015 and silver 1.9% to ₹1,95,868; silver is down 16.1% over 20 sessions.

• Brent at its highest since May: Brent climbed to $115 a barrel, its highest since May 4, after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia raised concerns over Middle Eastern energy supplies. US crude rose above $100.

• US bond yields back at 5%: The US 10-year Treasury yield climbed back to 5% on Friday after falling 17 basis points the previous session, its largest one-day fall in more than a year. Rising oil, Middle East tensions and uncertainty ahead of the US midterm elections weighed on sentiment.

• A sharp fall in US tech: On Thursday, the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.1% and the S&P 500 1.2%. Tesla shares fell 2% after it cut its 2026 capital-spending forecast to about $20 billion from more than $25 billion; lower spending on AI and robotics helped it generate positive free cash flow in the third quarter.

• Chinese AI goes global: Chinese AI developers DeepSeek and MiniMax have reportedly received government approval for global use of their models, a step toward expanding the international presence of Chinese AI.

• Jio Platforms' IPO sets a record: The IPO received more than 1 crore applications with hours of bidding still left, a reported global record for the number of IPO applications, beating the previous record of about 97 lakh held by Waaree Energies.

• Forex reserves fall again: India's foreign-exchange reserves fell $5 billion to $721.02 billion in the week ended October 16, after an $8.58 billion decline the week before. Reserves have been falling since a record $785.71 billion in early September, which had been supported by inflows through a special diaspora deposit swap scheme.

• Business confidence improves: NCAER's Business Confidence Index rose to 107.8 in the second quarter of FY27 from 99.8, ending four straight quarters of moderation, though it remains below the 142.6 recorded a year earlier.

• Sigenergy to build in India: The Chinese energy-storage company plans an initial investment of $250 million in inverter and battery energy-storage manufacturing in India, with the inverter plant expected to start by the second quarter of 2027.

• Hotels: a structural shortage: Indian Hotels' MD and CEO Puneet Chhatwal said India has roughly 200,000 branded hotel rooms and is on track to add another 200,000 over the next few years, but needs about a million to support its long-term growth, with domestic tourism growing at an 11% annual rate over the past decade.

• Today: Foreign investors sold a net ₹2,262 crore and domestic institutions bought ₹3,235 crore.

• The week: Over the four sessions from October 19 to 23, foreign investors were small net buyers of ₹1,299 crore — helped by Thursday's purchase, which NSDL's data shows in place of the provisional sale first reported — and domestic institutions bought ₹10,941 crore. Even so, Nifty fell 2.4% and small caps far more: institutional flows are only part of what moves prices.

• Derivatives: Foreign investors bought a net ₹12,361 crore of index options on notional value, ₹2,431 crore of stock options and ₹187 crore of stock futures, and sold ₹36 crore of index futures. The AMR notes options look far larger on this measure, so the sign matters more than the size.

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.”