Puneet Wadhwa

SIPs have been marketed as a product that can deliver 12 per cent, 14 per cent and other such fantastical figures. These claims are made by people who have a vested interest in saying so, Sharma said.

"Jagdishan's decision is incrementally positive as it removes one binary uncertainty," analysts at Nomura said in a note post the development.

At the bourses, meanwhile, investors sought refuge in realty, pharma and the metal pack. Their respective indexes on the NSE gained up to 17 per cent thus far, ACE Equity data shows.

While gold has traditionally been a dormant store of value for Indian households, the current price upcycle is increasingly turning the asset into a source of liquidity through gold-backed loans.

Despite being net buyers for the past two months, FPIs are still net sellers in Indian equities thus far in 2026 with their net sales totalling Rs 2.27 trillion ($24.31 billion) in CY26, data shows.

Rabobank expects Brent to remain volatile in the months ahead, with $70-$75/bbl acting as the lower-end support zone and $95-$100 forming the upper end of the range.

For hospital operators, a Jefferies note said the MPD introduces several measures that could improve asset productivity and enable higher capacity creation in land-constrained areas.

The slowdown in NFOs is more to do with the product suite being complete rather than concerns on the market's trajectory, Setalvad said.

Among large private banks, Goldman Sachs sees the strongest upside in ICICI Bank; Bernstein, meanwhile, rates ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank as 'Outperform.

Despite differences in trading behaviour and portfolio construction, Bitcoin and Dogecoin emerged as the most popular crypto pairing across every age group in Q2-CY26 on the CoinSwitch platform.

While Nifty may be struggling to make new highs, history, analysts said, suggests such extended periods of failing to cross the previous day's high have often been followed by a meaningful upside.

Bernstein has, however, held on to some of the stocks in its earlier focus list - Larsen & Toubro (L&T), NTPC Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Nuvama and HomeFirst.

For FII flows to accelerate - lower crude oil prices, rupee stability and two consecutive quarters of earnings delivery without downgrades seem must, says Jignesh Desai of Centrum Broking.

The biggest opportunity for a fund house to differentiate itself lies in the strength of its investment philosophy, people, and processes, Chugh said.

A sentiment knock across the pack was the realistic expectation, said Anirudh Garg, Fund Manager and Partner, INVasset PMS, with the magnitude inversely proportional to succession clarity.

Most of the group stocks such as TCS, Titan, Tata Communications and Tata Motors PV traded with cuts of up to 4 per cent in intraday deals on Wednesday.

Shriram Finance (up 28 per cent), Eicher Motors (up 22 per cent), Cholamandalam Financial Holdings (up 19 per cent) and M&M (up 19 per cent) have outperformed Nifty 50 this far in FY27, data shows.

Within the Nifty-500, DIIs were overweight in Consumer, public sector undertaking (PSU) Banks, Oil & Gas, Telecom, Metals, and Technology sectors in the June 2026 quarter, reports suggest.

India, Wood wrote, continues to benefit from improving domestic fundamentals, with bank credit growth accelerating to 17-18 per cent year-on-year in 2026.

For Indian markets, the bigger issue over the next few months, analysts said, isn't the repo rate, but how much more geopolitical pressure the rupee can take before the central bank has to step in.