Indian Markets: A Week That
Went Nowhere,
For Good Reason
+0.32% on the week
inside cautious zone
as of week close
Zoom out and the picture is starker: the Sensex is down 4.25% over the past month and down 7.13% year-on-year. Motilal Oswal noted the Sensex was marginally down on a weekly VWAP basis, trading near the 75,300 level that has acted as a centre of gravity. The weekly RSI on Nifty stood at 41.83 — well inside the cautious zone, reflecting weakening momentum and an absence of either strong buying conviction or panic selling.
The FII/DII dynamic tells the underlying story. FIIs sold ₹1,891 crore on May 21, while DIIs countered with ₹2,492 crore in buying. Month-to-date through May 20, FIIs have net-sold ₹25,896 crore from Indian equities. DIIs have absorbed all of it and more, buying ₹48,369 crore in the same period. The domestic institutional wall — built on SIP inflows, insurance money, and pension funds — is the singular reason this market hasn't corrected 10–12% in a world where crude is above $100 and the Fed is contemplating rate hikes. It is holding the floor. It is not providing the fuel for a breakout.
The index level of ~23,700 reflects a market that believes a US-Iran deal eventually happens, Rubio's India visit produces something real on trade, and the RBI doesn't hike. Remove any one of those assumptions and you're looking at 22,500. Add in all three with conviction and 25,000–25,500 is back on the table. The range reflects genuine uncertainty, not laziness.
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Indian IT
The preceding week's damage — which the current week's consolidation was trying to digest — had a very specific cause. On May 12, OpenAI announced a new $4 billion enterprise deployment company, backed by TPG, Brookfield, Bain, and Advent, specifically designed to help organisations build and deploy AI directly for everyday work — directly overlapping with services offered by India's IT industry. Indian IT stocks fell up to 4% the same day. TCS touched its 52-week low of ₹2,283 — down 28.63% year-to-date. Infosys fell to its lowest level since December 2020.