- Summary
- The Sensex surged 1,878.42 points to close at 69,947.75 while the Nifty 50 jumped 589.95 points to end at 21,755.85 on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, after a dramatic intraday reversal of more than 3,100 points, as Oman announced that Iran had agreed in principle to a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for mine clearance.
- Every sectoral index closed in the green, with Nifty Metal surging 4.6%, Realty up 4.2%, PSU Bank gaining 3.8% and Auto rising 3.1%, as Monday’s worst losers Tata Steel, Adani Ports and IndusInd Bank became Tuesday’s top gainers, while defensives Hindustan Unilever and Nestle India ended as the only laggards.
- Brent crude crashed more than 13% from $112 to below $97 in its biggest single-day fall since April 2020, the India VIX plunged 19%, and the rupee recovered 57 paise in its best day since March.
- Foreign investors turned net buyers for the first time in nine sessions, and festive-linked stocks joined the rally, with IndiGo up 6.7% on fuel relief and Titan gaining 4.8% ahead of Dhanteras.
The Sensex rose 1,878.42 points, or 2.76%, to close at 69,947.75 in its best single-day gain since June 2024, while the Nifty 50 ended 589.95 points, or 2.79%, higher at 21,755.85, after touching a fresh 52-week low of 20,784.10 in the first hour and then recovering nearly 1,000 points from the bottom.
The broader market rebounded even harder. The Nifty MidCap 100 jumped 3.42% and the Nifty SmallCap 100 surged 3.76%, reversing Monday’s pattern, while provisional data showed foreign investors net buying ₹2,850 crore alongside ₹3,200 crore of domestic institutional purchases.
Impact on the stock market
Sectoral gainers: Every sector closed green, led by Nifty Metal at 4.6% and Nifty Realty at 4.2%, with the rate-sensitive and commodity names that suffered most on Monday leading the recovery.
Sectoral losers: There were none at the index level, though the safe-haven trade unwound sharply within stocks, with staples, upstream oil producers and gold loan companies all declining as money rotated back into risk.
| Sector/Index | Performance |
| IT & BPM sector | 5.22% |
| Healthcare sector | 0.08% |
| Oil & Gas sector | 0.49% |
| Real estate sector | 2.46% |
| PSU Bank in India | 1.44% |
Top gainers today
| Company | Share Price (in ₹) | Change % |
| HCL Tech | 1,326.00 | 8.42 |
| TCS | 2,269.30 | 6.79 |
| Shriram Finance | 988.00 | 6.31 |
| Tech Mahindra | 1,543.50 | 4.93 |
| Infosys | 1,062.10 | 4.13 |
Top losers today
| Company | Share Price (in ₹) | Change % |
| Kotak Mahindra | 439.00 | -0.99 |
| Eternal | 320.45 | -0.79 |
| Maruti Suzuki | 11,245.00 | -0.62 |
| Max Healthcare | 861.00 | -0.57 |
Market aftermath: Impact on stocks
The Ceasefire: 72 Hours, Minesweepers, and a Thursday Meeting in Muscat
The turnaround arrived at around 12:40 pm, when Oman’s foreign ministry announced that Iran had agreed in principle to a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire starting 6 pm Tehran time, allowing minesweepers to clear the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a pause in US strikes. President Trump later confirmed the pause on Truth Social, calling it Iran’s “FINAL chance for a REAL DEAL”, with formal talks set to resume in Muscat on Thursday, led by US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. Early commercial signals followed quickly, with Qatar saying LNG loadings could resume within 48 hours of confirmed mine clearance and Lloyd’s insurers reviewing their suspension of war-risk cover.
The caution matters as much as the relief, because the hardest questions, including the naval blockade, sanctions and the scope of Iran’s nuclear programme, remain entirely unresolved. Eurasia Group’s analysts put the chance of the ceasefire collapsing within a week at around 40%, summarising the risk in five words, since a ceasefire is not a deal. It is, however, the first genuine de-escalation since Operation Midnight Reckoning, and markets around the world traded it as exactly that.
Banks and Bonds: The Twin-Shock Trade Unwinds in a Single Session
Financials led the recovery as emphatically as they led Monday’s fall, with IndusInd Bank surging 8.4% to ₹663.4 to recover its entire previous-day loss, and the Bank Nifty rising 3.5% to 52,245, reclaiming the long-term trend line it had broken for the first time since Covid. The rates market repriced just as fast, with swap pricing cutting the odds of an emergency RBI rate hike from 60% to around 25%, and the 10-year government bond yield falling 14 basis points to 7.38% in its best day since May 2025. The rupee strengthened 57 paise to 96.61, its biggest single-day gain since March.
The analyst commentary stayed deliberately measured, with Jefferies keeping IndusInd at Hold and noting that one ceasefire does not reset the risk, while Kotak’s Sanjeev Prakash called it “a relief rally, not an all-clear” and wants to see two consecutive closes above 21,800 before trusting the bottom. Chart watchers now frame the range clearly, with resistance at 21,800 and then 22,100, and support at 21,200. After two days of violent moves in both directions, those levels are the market’s only fixed points.
The Great Rotation: Defensives Fall as Festive Plays Take the Stage
Tuesday’s other story was the speed of the rotation out of Monday’s hiding places, with Hindustan Unilever falling 1.9% to ₹2,560, ONGC dropping 3.9% as crude realisation hopes reversed, and gold loan companies Muthoot Finance and Manappuram declining over 4% as gold eased 2.8% from its record to ₹1,48,600 per 10 grams. The same logic that made these stocks Monday’s winners made them Tuesday’s funding source. Oil India’s 4.5% fall completed the mirror image of the previous session.
The money moved into festive-season beneficiaries, with IndiGo surging 6.7% to ₹5,890 as the 13% crude crash promised direct relief on jet fuel, its single largest cost, and Asian Paints gaining 5.2% on the same input-cost logic. The most interesting move was Titan, up 4.8% to ₹3,310, with analysts noting that Dhanteras is about two and a half weeks away and a dip in gold prices tends to trigger jewellery buying rather than deter it. If the ceasefire holds, the festive season that looked at risk on Monday becomes the demand event that could carry this market into November.
Crude Oil: A 13% Crash From $112 to Below $97, the Biggest Fall Since 2020
Oil gave back the war premium at historic speed, with Brent crashing more than 13% from $112.35 to as low as $96.40, its biggest single-day fall since April 2020, before trading at $98.75 on Tuesday evening, while WTI fell 11.4% to $92.95 and domestic futures on the MCX dropped 10.8% to ₹9,480. The physical market thawed in real time, with tanker freight rates falling 35% from Monday’s peak and 14 tankers queued at Fujairah awaiting clearance to transit once the mines are cleared. The International Energy Agency said it is pausing further strategic reserve releases pending clarity.
The forecasts now carry an explicit fork, with Goldman Sachs cutting its near-term Brent view to $95-105 while the ceasefire holds but warning of $130 or more if it collapses, and JPMorgan keeping a $120 risk case on the table. That two-sided range is the honest summary of where things stand. For India, every day the strait stays open at these prices repairs the inflation arithmetic that forced the RBI’s hand just last week.
Conclusion
Tuesday delivered the sharpest sentiment reversal of the entire conflict, with a 3,100-point intraday swing, every sector green, the VIX down 19% and foreign investors buying for the first time in nine sessions, all on the strength of a 72-hour window that does not yet amount to a deal. The mirror-image rotation, with Monday’s refuges funding Tuesday’s risk, shows how mechanical this market has become about the single variable of Hormuz. The sensible frame comes from the analysts, who want two closes above 21,800 and a Thursday in Muscat that produces more than photographs, against a 40% chance the truce fails within a week. With Dhanteras two and a half weeks away, crude back below $100 and the festive demand engine intact, the price for a durable ceasefire is visible, and so is the $130 cost of a collapse, which makes Thursday’s talks the most important market event of the year so far.
