THE CHAIN: Nifty ended the week down 2%, pulled lower by oil crossing $100 and interest rates rising around the world — on Friday itself, Asian markets fell hard while India held up much better, and by evening in the US, oil suddenly dropped and Wall Street jumped more than 1%.

BONDS — money people lend to governments

When a government needs money, it borrows it — the same way you might borrow money from a friend — and promises to pay a bit extra back every year. That extra bit is called interest, and the "10-year yield" is how much interest you'd earn per year for lending a government money for 10 years. When this number goes up, borrowing money gets more expensive for everyone, not just governments.

The US 10-year yield closed at 4.95% on Friday, touching as high as 4.98% during the day — one of its highest points in years. It was 4.94% on Thursday, so it barely moved on the day itself, but it has climbed steadily all week.

Japan's 10-year yield touched 3% on 1 September — the first time it's been that high since 1996.

India's 10-year yield reached 6.96% on 4 September, a 12-week high.

CURRENCY — what one dollar costs in rupees

The rupee closed at 95.26 to the dollar on Thursday — the weakest it's been in over a month. The Dollar Index (a number that tracks the dollar's strength against six other major currencies) closed at 99.09 on Friday, almost exactly where it was on Thursday (99.11) — the dollar itself didn't move much this week, even though the rupee did.

GLOBAL MARKETS — how other countries' stock markets did

US: Big rally on Friday. The Dow Jones closed at 52,640.98, up 576.88 points (1.11%). The S&P 500 closed at 7,666.42, up 74.72 points (0.98%). The Nasdaq closed at 26,363.52, up 281.79 points (1.08%). This happened even though a hot US inflation report came out that morning, because oil prices fell sharply on the same day and that mattered more to investors. The VIX (a number that shows how nervous traders are — higher means more nervous) dropped hard, from 17.84 on Thursday to 15.82 on Friday, an 11% fall in one day.

Europe: FTSE 100 (London) closed at 10,650.44 on Friday, up 0.39% from Thursday. Germany's DAX closed at 25,568.56, up 0.82%.

Asia: A rough day. Japan's Nikkei closed at 63,469.39 on Friday, down 2.76% from Thursday's 65,270.95. China's Shanghai index closed at 3,864.04, down 1.79%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed at 24,647.64, down 1.23%. All three fell harder than India did on the same day.

INDIA — how our own market did

Nifty 50 closed at 23,398.10 on Friday, down 0.34% from Thursday. Bank Nifty closed at 56,606.55, up 0.24%.

For the week: Nifty fell 2.09%, Bank Nifty fell 1.33% — both worse than most of the week's individual days suggested, because Monday through Thursday added up.

Here's how Nifty and Bank Nifty compare to different points in the past:

How long ago Nifty 50 Change Bank Nifty Change
1 week ago 23,897.70 -2.09% 57,369.65 -1.33%
1 month ago 24,435.95 -4.25% 57,885.85 -2.21%
1 quarter (3 months) ago 23,622.90 -0.95% 56,814.80 -0.37%
1 year ago 25,005.50 -6.43% 54,669.60 +3.54%
2 years ago 24,918.45 -6.10% 51,010.00 +10.97%
5 years ago 17,369.25 +34.71% 36,683.20 +54.31%
10 years ago 8,715.60 +168.46% 19,790.60 +186.03%

The short-term picture is weak — down over the last week, month, and quarter. But zoom out to 5 or 10 years, and both indices are up a great deal. This kind of dip is normal inside a much longer climb.

Sector-wise this week: every sector fell except Pharma (+0.21%), CPSE (+0.26%) and PSE (-0.22%, nearly flat). Realty was the worst, down 6.54% for the week, followed by IT, down 5.78%. Both are the most sensitive to rising interest rates and, for IT, a stronger yen hurting Indian exporters who compete with Japanese ones.

India VIX closed at 11.92 on Wednesday, up 6.81% from Tuesday — the most recent day we have it confirmed.

WHO IS BUYING — foreign and Indian money flows

FIIs (big foreign investment firms) and DIIs (big Indian investment firms like mutual funds and insurance companies) both trade every day. On Wednesday, the most recent confirmed session, FIIs sold ₹583 crore more than they bought. DIIs bought ₹1,509 crore more than they sold — Indian money was cushioning some of the foreign selling.

COMMODITIES — oil, gold, silver, copper

Oil had a wild week and an even wilder Friday. Brent crude (the international oil price) opened Friday at $109.16, touched $110.19 during the day, then fell all the way to $104.95 by the close — a drop of $2.92, or 2.71%, from Thursday. The reason: as US inflation data came out, traders decided the bigger story was that supply worries were easing, and oil sold off hard into the US close.

Since the US-Iran war began at the end of February, oil is still up more than 50% from where it was before the war.

MCX gold (India's gold exchange) closed around ₹1,51,800 for 10 grams on Friday morning trade, down from Thursday's ₹1,52,341. Silver was trading near ₹2,32,000 per kilogram, also lower.

Copper traded around $6.76 a pound this week, close to its highest price ever.

INDIA'S PRICE NUMBER — how fast prices are rising here

India's most recent inflation reading (CPI, which measures how much everyday prices have gone up) was 4.45% for the year, as of July — the highest since December 2024.

GLOBAL NEWS — what happened abroad this week

11 September: The US government's inflation report (CPI) showed prices rose 0.4% in August compared to July, and 3.4% compared to a year ago — both close to what was expected, but the "core" number (which strips out food and fuel) came in a touch hotter than hoped. Traders raised the chance of a US interest rate hike next week to about 85%, from 67% just the day before.

11 September: Despite that hot inflation number, US stocks rallied because oil prices fell hard on the same day (see Commodities above).

10 September: The US Treasury (which manages US government money) bought back $5.19 billion of its own older bonds — three times the usual size — to help keep long-term borrowing costs in check.

10 September: The European Central Bank raised its own interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

1 September: Japan's 10-year bond yield touched 3% for the first time since 1996 (see Bonds above).

INDIAN NEWS (from the government's press office — PIB)

The big story: BRICS. India is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on 12-13 September — its fourth time hosting this group of 11 large developing countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE). Today, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal called for deeper and more balanced trade within the group. Prime Minister Modi addressed a related business forum, and a separate investor gathering at the same time is bringing together institutions managing $1 trillion combined.

Today, 11 September (13 releases, 10 ministries):

Election Commission: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar spoke on students as future torchbearers of democracy
Agriculture: 50 years of the ICAR-ICRISAT farming research partnership celebrated at the Dryland Congress
Coal (2): Captive coal mines showing strong output despite monsoon rains; details released on the revised Tara coal block auction
Commerce & Industry: Piyush Goyal's call for deeper BRICS trade (above)
Finance: The Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 2026 — a law that makes it easier to use bank records as evidence in court — takes effect from 1 October 2026
Health (2): A national conference on the safety of biosimilar medicines; India has now given 80 lakh HPV vaccine doses, a major step in preventing cervical cancer
Housing & Urban Affairs: A city-planning oversight committee held its 9th meeting
Labour: Minister Mansukh Mandaviya spoke on the importance of workers' strength to the country's growth
Ports, Shipping & Waterways (2): A heritage-site review meeting at Lothal (an ancient port city); Cochin Shipyard formed a joint venture with Drydocks World to strengthen India's ship-repair industry
Power: Minister Manohar Lal to attend a G20 energy meeting in Houston, USA

Earlier this week (7-10 September, 63 releases across 20 ministries) — covered in full in Thursday's edition; highlights were the Agriculture Ministry's Dryland Congress and ASEAN farming talks, Commerce Ministry's INNOPROM India showcase and Russia trade push, and Finance Ministry wildlife and drug-trafficking seizures by DRI.

THE WEEK AHEAD

15-16 September: The US Federal Reserve meets to decide on interest rates. Decision on the 16th.
17-18 September: Japan's central bank (Bank of Japan) holds its own policy meeting.