Indian equity benchmarks maintained their strong momentum in Tuesday's afternoon session, with the Nifty 50 trading at 22,546.95, jumping 183.6 points or 0.82% as of 1:42 PM on October 13, 2026, while the Sensex climbed 592.18 points or 0.82% to reach 72,516.86 level. This continued the recovery from the morning session where the Nifty 50 opened at 22,364.15 against its previous close of 22,363.35 and advanced to 22,533.80, gaining 170.45 points or 0.76%. The Sensex, which closed at 71,924.68 on Monday, opened at 71,951.73 and climbed to 72,482.30, up 557.62 points or 0.78%. This afternoon's performance shows sustained investor confidence as the market builds on the morning's strong opening momentum, with both indices rising more than 1% at their intraday highs. The benchmark indices had lost 8.7% over the eight-week period and 3.1% in the previous holiday-shortened week alone, with crude prices near $100 per barrel, record foreign selling, and spiking global bond yields weighing on sentiment. The rebound was supported by gains in information technology stocks, particularly heavyweight counters, and softer crude oil prices during Asian trade.
Information technology stocks emerged as the strongest performers, with the NIFTY IT index jumping as much as 4.9% to 29,738.80, with all 10 constituents trading in positive territory. The gains followed TCS' Q2 FY27 results last week, which were broadly in line with, or slightly ahead of, market expectations, and HCLTech's broadly in-line Q2 FY27 results, which highlighted resilience in its services business despite some concerns over growth. According to The Economic Times, IT stocks gained despite the US green card programme suspension update, as IT bellwether TCS disclosed that there will be no impact of the directive on the workforce strategy and customer engagements in the United States. TCS management noted that the suspension of the US government's Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM) is unlikely to affect its workforce strategy or customer engagements, with investors brushing aside near-term jitters over the US suspension of major technology companies from the PERM employment-based green-card programme after clarifications confirmed that existing H-1B employment was unaffected. The broader IT pack, including Infosys, Wipro, and HCLTech, rallied in tandem, with HCL Tech shares up 2% and Tech Mahindra rising 1.5%.
Hindustan Unilever shares jumped 3% to touch an intraday high of ₹1,878.90, tracking a rally in FMCG stocks amid broader gains in the equity market. The FMCG major in its Q1 FY27 earnings concall had said it expects to hike prices across multiple product categories in the September quarter (Q2 FY27) as it anticipates sequential inflation of 2-5% compared to April-June. The diversified FMCG major, which hiked prices by 2-5% in Q1 FY27, will continue to take a "calibrated" pricing action to offset the impact in the current quarter while protecting volume-led growth, said its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Priya Nair at the post-earnings call. The company's board of directors will meet on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, to approve Q2 FY27 earnings and half-yearly audited financial results, with the board also "considering the proposal for payment of interim dividend, if any, for the financial year ending 31st March 2027" and holding a call with investors on the same day. However, RBL Bank shares tumbled nearly 9% to an intraday low of ₹381.40 as investors reacted to the company's Q2 FY27 earnings performance trailing behind expectations amid elevated credit costs, equity fundraising impact and muted EPS growth. Despite posting a 170% surge in standalone net profit to ₹482 crore and net interest income advancing 37% year-on-year to ₹2,131 crore, the bank's net interest margin improved by only 48 basis points to 4.61%.
The recovery extended beyond large-cap stocks, with buying interest extending to the broader market as the Nifty Midcap 100 index advanced 1.37% and the Nifty Smallcap 100 gained 0.49%. According to The Economic Times, market breadth was positive, with 2,516 gainers against 1,867 losers on the BSE, with 2,516 stocks advancing, while 1,867 declined and 227 remained unchanged on the BSE. The BSE MidCap Select index jumped 1.59%, and the SmallCap Select index climbed 0.56%. All BSE sectoral indices ended higher, with Bank Nifty outperforming, rising 1.36% to 55,256.65. The Nifty FMCG, Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Private Bank, Nifty Realty and Nifty Financial Services indices, along with several other sectoral indices, gained between 1% and 2%. IT, FMCG, banking, auto and consumer durables all closed in the green, while only Nifty Oil & Gas bucked the trend, ending marginally lower. Apollo Hospitals, ITC and Eicher Motors led the Nifty gainers, while BSE, Reliance Industries and JSW Steel lagged. As per The Hindu BusinessLine, Dilip Parmar of HDFC Securities noted that the rupee also joined the recovery, gaining 5 paise to close at 96.71 against the dollar, snapping three sessions of weakness, with the currency benefiting as crude oil prices eased and risk appetite surged across global markets. According to The Financial Express, investors' wealth increased by ₹4.35 lakh crore to ₹465.32 lakh crore, of which major IT companies contributed ₹70,151 crore. However, according to Mint, the benchmark rebound did not lift all sectors, with BSE Telecommunication gaining 3.7%, while FMCG and Bankex rose 2.4% and 1.3% respectively during the week.
Global sentiment remained fragile with Wall Street closing mixed overnight, the Dow rising 0.38% to 51,850, the S&P 500 flat, and the Nasdaq falling 0.44%, as Micron dropped 3.9% on reports of rapid progress by Chinese chipmaker CXMT Corp in next-generation DRAM production. The US 10-year Treasury yield held near 5.3% with the 30-year hitting 5.70%, its highest since 2002, while the dollar index climbed to around 102.5, an 18-month high. Asia bore the brunt of the semiconductor rout, with South Korea's KOSPI crashing 6.5%, falling below 6,000 against a 52-week high of 9,358, triggering a sidecar. Samsung Electronics slumped 7.5% and SK Hynix plunged 9%, as foreign investors offloaded 8.46 trillion won in just the first 12 trading days of October. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 2.5%, while separately, Tencent announced plans to raise at least $4.5 billion through bonds to fund artificial intelligence investments. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, Devarsh Vakil, Head of Prime Research at HDFC Securities, flagged that the opening strength still needs confirmation: "A sustained move above last week's high of 22,776 would be needed to signal a bullish trend reversal... On the downside, 22,180 is near-term support; a break below it could signal a resumption of the downtrend."
