Correction to the previous edition. Friday's institutional figures have now published and confirm a number
this dashboard previously withheld. The prior edition excluded a reported ₹5,040 crore FII cash sale because the
tracker's accompanying commentary referenced a three-day selling streak that contradicted 26 August net buying.
Two independent sources now confirm the figure: FIIs sold ₹5,039.80 crore on 28 August. The commentary was
wrong; the number was right. It is carried in full below, and it changes the read of the week materially.
Nifty 50
24,175.65 ▲0.35%
−76.35 pts WoW (−0.31%) · 3rd weekly loss
Sensex
77,264.51 ▲0.43%
−276.32 pts WoW (−0.36%)
India VIX
10.68
−3.5% · new low for the entire cycle
FII cash · 28 Aug
−₹5,039.8Cr
Heaviest single-session sale of the month
DII cash · 28 Aug
+₹5,183.9Cr
Absorbed 102.9% of the FII sale
Brent crude
~$88
Down 8% over nine days · off $94
Market optimism gauge44% — Domestically propped
BearishNeutralBullish
The week in sessions
Macro factors
Factor
Signal
Direction
The Friday divergence
FIIs sold ₹5,039.80 crore of cash equity — and the Nifty still closed up 84.80 points while VIX fell 3.5% to a cycle low. DIIs bought ₹5,183.93 crore, absorbing 102.9% of the foreign sale
The week's real story
Brent crude reverses
Cooled to about $88/bbl, down 8% over nine days, on hopes of progress in talks that could reduce supply disruption around the Strait of Hormuz — a full reversal of the prior week's $94 spike
Pressure lifting
Nvidia & the AI trade
A strong revenue forecast lifted Nasdaq 1.57%, S&P 500 0.72% and Dow 0.20% on Thursday. That single result drove Friday's entire Indian IT rally
Imported tailwind
Hormuz economic cost
CREA estimated the crisis has added $22 billion to India's fossil-fuel import costs — the price relief is recent, the cumulative damage already booked
Cost already incurred
India VIX
Closed at 10.68, down 3.5%, the lowest reading of this entire cycle — beneath 11.07 the day before and 14.03 in late July
Deepening complacency
Technical position
The 24,000–23,950 zone is the crucial support area, with an upward-sloping trendline positioned there. A decisive breach below 23,950 would open a correction toward 23,800
Support under test
Key insight: Friday is the cleanest illustration of this market's structure all month. Foreign
investors dumped ₹5,040 crore of stock — the heaviest single session of August — and the index went up.
Domestic institutions bought ₹5,184 crore, covering the entire sale with ₹144 crore to spare, and volatility fell
to a cycle low of 10.68. That is a market where the marginal price is being set almost entirely by domestic
flows. It explains the resilience, and it identifies the single point of failure: this holds precisely as long as
DII buying holds.
Data integrity note. Two sources give incompatible figures for FPI monthly flows. Business Standard's
Capital Market desk reports FPIs bought ₹17,996.51 crore in August through 27 August, following
₹6,731.97 crore in July and net selling of ₹53,957.90 crore in June. Separate coverage of the NSDL release reports
₹23,544 crore for August and ₹20,200 crore for July. These are different series — NSE provisional cash-market data
versus NSDL's all-segment FPI figures, which include primary-market transactions. This dashboard quotes the NSE
provisional series throughout and labels it as such. On that basis, Friday's ₹5,039.80 crore sale reduces the
August cash total to roughly ₹12,957 crore — a single session erasing 28% of the month's accumulated inflow.
Methodology note — third consecutive edition with this constraint. The matrix covers the
Friday 28 August session (sector move versus the Nifty's +0.35%). Verified closing magnitudes were
available for only one sector — Nifty IT — and even that is reported as "over 3 per cent" rather than an
exact close, so it carries an approximate flag. Five further sectors have a verified direction but no
published magnitude, shown separately as direction-only chips. Week-on-week quadrant migration remains omitted
for a third edition: the past three weeks have used a weekly basis, a single-session basis, and now a
single-session basis with one verified sector. Charting migration across those would look authoritative and mean
nothing.
Leading
Improving
Weakening
Lagging
Direction verified · magnitude unpublished
Nifty IT · the only sector with a documented trend
Friday 28 Aug
+3%
Past 2 months
+15%
From July low
+22%
H1 2026
−30%
The full arc matters more than Friday's move. Nifty IT fell nearly 30% in the first half of 2026 on
AI-disruption fears, then recovered 22% from its July low and 15% over the past two months — yet remains
negative year-to-date. Brokerage commentary is notably split: analysts cite AI-led revenue deflation,
eroding labour-arbitrage advantage and pricing pressure in managed services as medium-term headwinds, and
describe risk-reward after this rally as "more balanced" rather than compelling. A recovery 22% off the low and
still negative for the year is a different proposition from a breakout.
Institutional flow · confirmed sessions
FII cash · 28 Aug
−₹5,039.8Cr
Newly confirmed · month's heaviest
DII cash · 28 Aug
+₹5,183.9Cr
102.9% absorption
FII cash · 27 Aug
−₹298.3Cr
DII +₹4,977.2 Cr
FII cash · 26 Aug
+₹502.6Cr
DII +₹6,425.2 Cr
FPI August (cash)
~+₹12,957Cr
Revised after Friday's sale
FII derivatives book · 28 August
Segment
Net (₹ Cr)
Read
Index Futures
−774.13
Adding shorts
Index Options
+298.58
Mixed — Bank Nifty +1,237, Nifty −835
Stock Futures
+148.46
Modest single-stock longs
Stock Options
+100.96
Marginal
Net F&O
−226.13
Cash + F&O = −₹5,265.93 Cr
India VIX · six-week trajectory
28 Aug
10.68
27 Aug
11.07
14 Aug
11.30
7 Aug
12.15
31 Jul
11.71
24 Jul
14.03
Volatility has fallen 24% from the 24 July reading and now sits at 10.68 — the lowest of the cycle. It declined
on the same session that foreign investors sold ₹5,040 crore. Options markets are pricing progressively less
risk into an index whose foreign bid has just turned sharply negative. Whether that reflects genuine confidence
in the domestic bid or simple complacency is the question this dashboard cannot answer, but it is the one worth
holding onto.
Where the money moved
Accumulation · Friday
IT (TCS, Tech Mahindra, Infosys) Pharma Metal Consumer durables (Thursday)
Smart money read: Across the three confirmed sessions of this week, DIIs bought ₹16,586 crore
against FII net sales of ₹4,835 crore. Domestic institutions are not merely supporting the market — they are the
market's entire marginal bid, and Friday proved they can absorb a ₹5,000 crore foreign sale without the index
losing ground. The vulnerability is symmetrical: nothing in this week's data shows what happens if that bid pauses,
because it has not paused once all month.
Note on the futures short: the 2,02,633-contract net short position cited in the previous edition came from
a single derivatives tracker whose accompanying commentary has since proven unreliable on the cash figure. The
contract-level position could not be re-confirmed from a second source at compile time, so it is not repeated
here. The rupee-value derivatives table above is used instead, since those figures come from the same
NSE-sourced series as the confirmed cash data.
◆Candidate listing only. This tab names potential stocks surfaced by the week's rotation and flow data.
It contains no entry levels, targets, stop-losses, position sizing or buy/sell calls — names to research, not trade instructions.
On coverage: Percentage moves shown are intraday figures from Friday's session where reported that way, and
are labelled accordingly — closing prices for most individual names had not published at compile time. Several
brokerages issued explicit preference lists this week; those are reported as facts about what analysts said, never
carried across as recommendations. The Penny plays cohort could not be verified for this session and is listed as
a standing liquidity watch group only.
Candidate cohort by category
Week ahead · 31 August – 4 September 2026
Trigger
Detail
Watch
Does the DII bid hold?
Friday's ₹5,184 crore absorbed a ₹5,040 crore foreign sale exactly. The month contains no example of domestic buying pausing, so there is no evidence either way on what follows if it does
The single dependency
FII selling persistence
Friday was the heaviest single-session foreign sale of August and reduced the month's cash inflow to roughly ₹12,957 crore. A second session of that size would turn the month negative
Escalation risk
Crude direction
Brent has fallen 8% in nine days to ~$88 on Hormuz talk progress. Holding below $90 is the difference between the past month's regime and a new one
Improving
IT follow-through
Friday's 3% move came entirely from Nvidia's forecast. The test is whether Indian IT holds the gain without a fresh external catalyst
Externally driven
24,000–23,950
The crucial support zone, with an upward-sloping trendline. A decisive breach opens 23,800
Line in the sand
Questions worth asking
Pro tip: Hold two facts from Friday side by side. Foreign investors sold ₹5,040 crore — their
heaviest single session of the month. And implied volatility fell to 10.68, the lowest reading of the entire
cycle. Those two things do not normally happen together. Either the options market is correctly reading a domestic
bid deep enough to make foreign selling irrelevant, or it is underpricing what happens when that bid takes a week
off. Nothing in August's data distinguishes between those two readings, because the DII bid has not paused once
all month. That is the specific thing to watch, and it is watchable in a single daily number.