- Summary
- The Sensex slumped 1,045.46 points to close at 71,593.24 while the Nifty 50 lost 371.25 points to settle at 22,231.80 on Thursday, 8 October 2026, as Brent crude surged past $104 and foreign fund outflows dented sentiment, with the Nifty touching a fresh 52-week low of 22,182.55 during the session.
- All sectoral indices ended in the red, with Metal, Realty and Oil & Gas the major underperformers, while Adani Enterprises and JSW Steel were the top laggards and only Infosys and Axis Bank closed with marginal gains.
- GQG Partners’ selling rattled ITC and the Adani group, with ITC falling 4% after a ₹9,437 crore block deal, while TCS opened results season after market hours with a profit beat, $3.1 billion in annualised AI revenue and a ₹12 dividend.
- The volatility index surged over 10%, broader markets fell more than 2%, and Brent extended its rise to 5% above $105 in its biggest single-day jump in nearly a month.
The Sensex fell 1,045.46 points, or 1.44%, to close at 71,593.24, while the Nifty 50 ended 371.25 points, or 1.64%, lower at 22,231.80, undoing the week’s recovery in a single session.
The broader market bore the heavier damage. The Nifty MidCap 100 declined 2.53% and the Nifty SmallCap 100 fell 2.34%, both dropping faster than the benchmarks, while the India VIX jumped over 10% as nerves returned.
Impact on the stock market
Sectoral losers: every sectoral index closed in the red, with Nifty Metal, Nifty Realty and Nifty Oil & Gas the major underperformers, extending Wednesday’s post-RBI pressure on rate-sensitive and commodity names.
Relative strength: Infosys and Axis Bank managing marginal gains was the only green on the board, with IT holding up ahead of TCS’s results in the evening.
| Sector/Index | Performance |
| IT & BPM sector | -0.08% |
| Healthcare sector | -2.33% |
| Oil & Gas sector | -2.52% |
| Real estate sector | -3.16% |
| PSU Bank in India | -1.15% |
Top gainers today
| Company | Share Price (in ₹) | Change % |
| Infosys | 997.00 | 0.50 |
| Tech Mahindra | 1,496.20 | 0.34 |
| Axis Bank | 1,245.00 | 0.20 |
Top losers today
| Company | Share Price (in ₹) | Change % |
| Adani Enterprise | 2,596.00 | -5.36 |
| JSW Steel | 1,175.20 | -4.46 |
| ITC | 255.00 | -4.03 |
| Max Healthcare | 873.40 | -3.81 |
| Interglobe Aviation | 4,813.10 | -3.55 |
Market aftermath: Impact on stocks
GQG Selling and a Yield Shock: Why ITC and Adani Stocks Bore the Brunt
ITC fell 4.03% to ₹255 after 36.66 crore shares, or 2.9% of the company, changed hands in a ₹9,437 crore block deal at ₹257 apiece, days after global investor GQG Partners disclosed it had reduced its ITC holding. The transaction reinforced concerns about a broader GQG exit from long-held Indian positions, since the firm sold more than ₹12,000 crore of Adani group holdings in the June quarter and has continued with disclosed sales in Adani Enterprises, Adani Energy Solutions, Adani Green and GMR Airports. Adani Enterprises fell more than 4%, making the group the most visible casualty of the day.
The deeper problem, though, is the global backdrop rather than one investor, with the US 10-year Treasury yield at its highest since 2002, which raises the discount rate used to value future corporate earnings and hits richly valued stocks hardest. Foreign investors sold over ₹6,100 crore of Indian equities on Wednesday alone, taking this year’s cumulative outflows to $28 billion, while domestic institutions bought around ₹4,500 crore to absorb it. The warning sign is that midcaps and smallcaps are now falling faster than the Nifty, a signal that thinner liquidity segments are starting to feel the strain of that tug-of-war.
TCS Q2: A Profit Beat, $3.1 Billion in AI Revenue and a ₹12 Dividend
Results season opened after market hours with TCS reporting a 4% sequential rise in net profit to ₹13,884 crore, beating the estimate of ₹13,673 crore, on revenue of ₹73,188 crore that grew 1.3% from the previous quarter and 11.2% year-on-year. The operating margin held steady at 24%, deal wins totalled $9.6 billion, and the company announced a dividend of ₹12 per share with 14 October as the record date. The headline number for the AI era was annualised AI revenue of $3.1 billion, which has now crossed 10% of overall revenue, with management citing new transformation partnerships with Porsche and Best Buy.
The segment detail showed broad-based international growth, with banking and financial services up 2.5% sequentially in constant currency, manufacturing and technology services growing 3.1% each and the UK leading markets at 3.5%, while India revenue declined 10.3%. The workforce stood at 598,056 with attrition stable at 13.3%. The stock closed 0.21% lower at ₹2,076 ahead of the announcement and is down 35.7% in 2026 against the Nifty’s 15% fall, so a clean beat with a visible AI growth engine gives the battered IT trade something real to work with on Friday.
The AMC Story: ₹38,600 Crore of Monthly Equity Inflows Keep the Domestic Engine Running
On a day dominated by foreign selling, Nomura’s mutual fund flow estimates offered the counterpoint, projecting net equity inflows of ₹386 billion, around ₹38,600 crore, for September, up 7% month-on-month. Small-cap funds are expected to remain the largest contributor at ₹86 billion, or 22% of inflows, followed by mid-cap at ₹81 billion and flexi-cap at ₹63 billion, while large-cap funds are seen turning positive after an August outflow. These are precisely the flows that have been absorbing the $28 billion of foreign selling this year.
Among the listed asset managers, Nomura prefers Nippon AMC for its consistent market share gains, with a flow share of 7.8% running above its 7.3% share of assets, followed by HDFC AMC for its reasonable valuation, though its flow share remains well below its 12.3% asset share. The small and mid-cap dominance of these inflows cuts both ways, since it funds the very segments now falling fastest. Whether that monthly ₹38,600 crore keeps arriving through a correction is the single most important domestic variable for this market.
Crude Oil: A 5% Surge Past $105 as War Risk and a Hurricane Collide
Oil delivered its biggest single-day surge since 11 September, with Brent jumping 4.99% to $105.20 a barrel, its highest since 29 September, and WTI gaining 5.06% to $92.75. The drivers stacked up ominously, with increased attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, an Axios report that Washington is preparing to resume major combat operations against Iran, and a hurricane forcing US producers to shut offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. IG analyst Chris Beauchamp said the US is likely piling on pressure to bring Iran to the table, “but we can’t discount the possibility of a new round of strikes”.
The combination of supply curtailed at home and threatened abroad explains why prices cleared $105 so quickly. For India, every leg higher in crude feeds the inflation forecast the RBI just raised and the import bill behind the rupee’s strain. Thursday’s equity crash was, at its core, the market repricing exactly that.
Conclusion
Thursday compressed every pressure point into one brutal session, with oil up 5%, US yields at a 24-year high, foreign selling accelerating and the Nifty printing a 52-week low, while GQG’s unwinding gave the selloff a face in ITC and the Adani group. The two offsetting forces also showed themselves clearly, with TCS delivering a profit beat and a $3.1 billion AI business after hours, and domestic mutual fund inflows near ₹38,600 crore a month still standing between this correction and something worse. The midcap and smallcap underperformance is the signal to respect, because it questions how long domestic liquidity can absorb the exit. Friday opens with TCS’s numbers on the tape and Brent above $105, and which of those two the market chooses to trade will say everything about where this correction goes next.
