Weekly Market Update — 23rd Aug 2026

Indian Markets

Nifty 50 closed at 24,252, down 0.47% from last week.

The sector which dragged us down was the IT sector, it fell by 2.63%. The reason is primarily cooler inflation cues from the US. Cooler inflation means that the Fed is most likely to not raise rates and this keeps the US Dollar weak. A weak US Dollar is usually bad for the Indian IT sector as it has the majority of its clients in the US. A weak dollar indirectly makes Indian IT services expensive for US companies — this coupled with the AI drama already happening pulled the index down.

The best performing sector was Private Banking. The Nifty Private Banking sector rose by 1.26% last week, the reason was primarily healthy domestic credit growth (more people borrowing money 🙃). This coupled with domestic institutions buying private banks aggressively led to the rally.

Broader Markets

Broader markets outperformed Nifty 50 with Nifty Metal and Nifty Realty being the highest gainers, with both gaining 1.78% over the week. The Metal rally was largely due to one of the companies — Welspun — getting a huge contract from the US which alone soared the price of the company by 15.3% in a single day.

Gold

As mentioned above, the US signalled cooler inflation which meant that the Fed is not going to raise rates anytime soon. Gold went bonkers because of this and rose by 5.13% over the last week, because steady interest rates mean that the US Dollar remains weak and when the US Dollar remains weak Gold tends to perform well. Now I'm not really sure how sustainable this rally is as Gold sits near a few major resistances — 164k and 170k — so I would first wait and watch to see how Gold behaves around these levels before deciding anything.

USOIL

Oil was up by 5.15% over the last week and the reason remains the same — repeated failure of the Hormuz peace agreement. This keeps a lot of oil still trapped and continues to make the situation worse with each passing day. The longer the negotiations remain stalled, the more panic sets in and drives oil prices higher.