September 2026 in numbers: stocks, gold, flows, rupee

The month in one paragraph

Almost everything fell in September 2026. The Nifty 50 lost 6.1%, Nifty IT 11.2%, gold 4.9% and silver 8.6%. Foreign institutions sold a net ₹44,013 crore of Indian shares and domestic ones bought ₹76,030 crore. The rupee slipped 0.75% against the dollar.

All figures compare the close on 31 August 2026 with the close on 30 September 2026.

Stocks

Mid caps fell hardest of the broad indices. Small caps fell least, about half as much as the Nifty 50.

Of the 142 NSE indices with a published P/E on both days, only 4 rose: Nifty SME Emerge (+3.8%), Nifty Media (+1.7%), Nifty IPO (+1.1%) and Nifty Commercial & Transport Services (+1.1%).

Among the sector indices:

India VIX, the market's measure of expected volatility, rose from 11.19 to 13.49.

Valuations

The fall made most indices cheaper on earnings: the P/E fell for 119 of the 142. The Nifty 50's P/E went from 20.36 to 19.36, and by 1 October it was 19.19, lower than on all but four days since March 2021. Nifty IT's P/E fell from 19.90 to 17.43.

A few moved the other way. The Nifty Smallcap 250's P/E rose from 33.90 to 34.45 although the index fell, because the earnings behind it dropped on 30 September, the half-yearly rebalancing day. Nifty Metal's P/E rose from 16.06 to 16.74 on a 3.3% fall.

The Smallcap 250 post explains how its P/E rose on a falling price.

Gold and silver

These are international spot prices converted to rupees, before duty and GST. Most of the fall came on 28 September, when gold dropped 3.9% and silver 5.1% in a session. Gold ended the month 17.9% below its January peak. The details are in gold in September 2026.

Institutional flows

DIIs were net buyers on all 21 sessions; FIIs were net sellers on 16. It was the ninth straight month of FII net selling in 2026, taking the year's total to ₹4,03,068 crore. The September flows post has the day-by-day picture.

The rupee

The dollar went from about ₹95.11 to about ₹95.83, a rise of 0.75%. That is close to the weakest the rupee has been: the dollar's highest close in our series, which starts in September 2016, was ₹96.88 on 23 July 2026.

Over the year to 30 September the dollar rose about 7.9% against the rupee, from ₹88.84.

What this does not tell you

One month is noise as much as signal. This year, March's 11.3% fall in the Nifty 50 was followed by a 7.5% rise in April. That is one episode, not a pattern.

Index levels are not your returns. A fund's NAV moves with its own holdings, and an investor's return depends on when the money went in.

The flow figures are provisional, cash-market only, and the gold prices exclude duty and GST.

Where to go from here

The live numbers are on three pages: NSE index valuations, gold and silver prices and FII and DII data.

For how every equity fund category has done, see the equity fund scorecard.