Nifty's Third Straight Losing Week as a New Closing Bell Draws the Blame — Even as Oil Tumbles From $94

Nifty closed at 24,175.65 on Friday, down about 0.3% for the week and its third straight weekly decline — the longest such run in five months. What made this week different was the excuse: alongside the usual Fed jitters, traders and Reuters alike pointed a finger at SEBI's new Closing Auction Session (CAS), the closing-price mechanism that's been live for less than a month and is still unsettling nerves around expiry. The offsetting story was oil, which gave back nearly all of last week's spike — Brent fell more than 5% to around $89 as the Iran standoff cooled from a supply threat into more of a sanctions stand-off. Meanwhile in Wyoming, Kevin Warsh delivered his first Jackson Hole speech as Fed chair, warning that inflation's "underlying trends" haven't meaningfully improved.

IT's Friday Rescue, and a Week Where the US Outran India

A look beyond the index level — at individual stocks, and at the rest of the world

IT stocks were the week's standout story, but only on the final day. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) jumped over 4% on Friday, dragging Tech Mahindra, Infosys, HCL Tech and Wipro up alongside it, as Nvidia's strong quarterly results and an upbeat guidance raise from US software major Salesforce reassured investors about IT services demand. Earlier in the week the same sector had been a drag, falling on Wednesday alongside FMCG and auto stocks as traders stayed cautious ahead of Nvidia's earnings and fresh US inflation data. On the losing side, PSU banks and defence names sold off hard on Monday as investors turned cautious ahead of the US Treasury Secretary's press conference on new Iran sanctions, while metal, cement and PSU banking names — including Hindalco, HDFC Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra — led Thursday's slide as the week's second straight losing session took Nifty below 24,100.

Zooming out, Nifty's mild weekly dip actually left India trailing most global peers for once. Wall Street snapped its own losing run, helped by falling Treasury yields early in the week and a market that mostly took Warsh's Friday tone in stride, while Asian markets traded without a clear common direction through the week.