समाचार Samāchār · Business · 6 November 2026

Sensex and Nifty post their best week since 2021. Foreign money came back for banks

The Sensex rose 1,718 points to 81,028 on Friday and the Nifty closed above 25,000. Both gained more than 8.5% in a week when Wall Street and Asia fell hard.

Indian shares had their best week in nearly six years. On Friday the Sensex rose 1,718.01 points, or 2.17%, to 81,028.02. The Nifty 50 rose 493.75 points, or 2.01%, to 25,030.35. Both closed at their highest in more than eight months. It was a seventh straight gain. Reuters puts that as the longest run in 14 months for the Nifty and 26 months for the Sensex.

The week matters more than the day. The Nifty gained 8.6% and the Sensex 8.8%. Reuters says that is the strongest week since February 2021. It came while the Nasdaq fell 5.5% overnight and the Kospi and the Nikkei lost about 6% each on Friday. Reuters gives three reasons. Crude prices fell. India has little exposure to AI-linked stocks. Foreign investors returned. They bought about ₹15,000 crore of shares on Thursday, their largest single day of net buying in nearly six years.

The money went to large banks first. HDFC Bank rose 13.8% and ICICI Bank 12.4% in the week. Reliance Industries gained 13.3% after its results. Friday was narrower than the headline. HDFC Sky counts 1,681 shares up and 2,400 down. The smallcap index fell 0.8%. Anand Rathi analysts Apoorva Khandelwal and Sushovon Nayak say markets could increasingly separate companies that fund the AI build-out from those that profit from using it.

Keep the scale in view. Even after this week the Nifty is down 4.2% for 2026 and the Sensex 4.9%. MSCI Emerging Markets is up 7%. That gap is what drew the buyers back. Holding them needs earnings growth and a steady fiscal path. Markets open for the Diwali session on Sunday.

What a founder takes from it: Foreign money is back because India carries little AI debt and crude has eased. Flows can leave as fast as they came. Founders who plan to raise or list should use the window and build the case on earnings, not on the index.