Hello and welcome to the Weekly Market Metrics! I’m Sandeep Rao, and we’re now in Week 20 of 2026.
This week, I want to start with a meme from Masaan, because that’s exactly how I felt all through the week.
The larger sentiment of the week was driven by the Prime Minister’s statement about the need to be more austere — be it in terms of oil consumption, gold, or foreign travel. Of course, social media didn’t take it lightly, but nevertheless, the markets got spooked. Thankfully, Wednesday and Thursday saw some recovery from the lows. The Rupee fall was evident across commodities, and the duty hike on gold and silver meant everything from precious metals to industrial metals to crude is up. Tough times indeed.
Section 1 — What Happened Last Week
Rate of Change (ROC) Across Indices
This week, almost all the indices we track are down anywhere between 2% and 3%, dragging the month-to-date (MTD) returns for May for all indices — except Midcap Nifty — into negative territory. Bank Nifty lost the most, dropping -2.89%, while Nifty managed to contain the damage the best, losing the least at -2.2%.
True to form, Midcap Nifty remains the strongest of the lot on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, while Sensex continues to lag behind as the weakest among them all.
NIFTY
Weekly
This week, Nifty lost 533 points, or 2.2%, to close at 23,644. The price has slipped below both the 20 and 40-week SMAs, and is now hovering just slightly above the 10-week SMA.
The weekly range expanded significantly to 735 points from last week’s 600 points. The 10-day daily average range currently sits at 251 points, which is close to 1%. It feels a lot more volatile on the ground because these moves are cutting sharply in both directions, rather than just trending one way. In fact, Tuesday’s Nifty 0DTE saw the highest daily range of the week at 409 points — covered in the expiry section below.
Daily
Last week, we spoke about Nifty getting stuck in a 1,050-point range between 23,550 and 24,600. This week, Nifty finally broke out of that range on the downside, only to recover late in the week and close right back inside it at 23,644.
The first two days were brutal, with Nifty dropping 1.49% and 1.83%. Then on Wednesday and Thursday, it made a comeback, gaining 0.14% and 1.18%, before finally cooling off to close in the red with a -0.19% drop on Friday.
On the daily timeframe, Nifty is now trading below its 21, 50, and 100-day EMAs, as well as its 200-day SMA. With the index slipping under all these major moving averages simultaneously, the charts are telling us one thing loud and clear: Nifty is firmly in a bearish grip.
Hourly
On the hourly timeframe, Nifty opened well below the 50 EMA with Monday’s gap-down and stayed under it until Thursday’s strong up-move. Since then, it’s just been chopping back and forth around that same EMA. Short-term trend followers continued to get absolutely chopped to pieces.
In a market environment like this, proper position sizing is quite literally the only thing that will keep you in the game for the long haul.
Nifty Weekly Expiry — Tuesday, 12 May
It was one of the cleanest trending days on Nifty 0DTE. The index had a massive range of 409 points, or 1.72%. Opening gap down, it never looked back and went on to close 436 points lower at 23,380. On this very day, Nifty finally broke the lower end of that 1,000-point range at 23,555, which we spoke about last week.
Strategies that benefit from a clean, trending move — like time-based straddles with stop-losses on individual legs, or pure directional setups — would have made fantastic gains. On the flip side, pure delta-neutral or rolling-straddle type strategies would have suffered significantly. Let me know in the comments how your expiry went.
Section 2 — What to Expect in the Coming Week
NIFTY
Nifty broke its month-long 1,050-point range this week, but managed to stage a recovery and close right back inside it. Currently, the chart shows a clear resistance at 23,800, while the immediate support has shifted down to 23,150.
The Nifty straddle closed at 315 points, up from 283 points last week, implying an expected move of roughly 1.33% on either side. This gives an expected range of 23,960 on the upside and 23,330 on the downside for the upcoming weekly expiry on Tuesday, 19 May .
At this stage in a news-driven market environment, pricing in overnight risk — especially over the weekend — is proving to be incredibly difficult. There are weeks where a 300-point premium feels like a solid cushion, only for the index to gap down by that exact same margin right after the weekend. Whether the current straddle price is truly enough to cover the risk, honestly it’s hard to say. We’ll just have to wait and see how the index behaves heading into Tuesday’s expiry.
The overall bias for Nifty remains bearish , with the expectation of occasional pullbacks toward 24,000. Unless Nifty actually clears and closes above 24,600 on a daily timeframe, the broader bias is going to stay firmly bearish.
Directional Bias Summary
Everything has flipped to a negative short-term and medium-term bias. The lone warrior is Midcap Nifty, which is stubbornly holding onto both its positive short-term and medium-term biases — the only major index where the price is still trading cleanly above both its 21 and 50 EMAs.
India VIX
India VIX rose 11.59% this week to close at 18.79, largely driven by signals from the Prime Minister that the economy is under stress and that austerity measures may be on the horizon.
Sectoral Performance — Tijori Indexes (TJI)
This week’s top five TJI performers: Upstream, Rating Agencies, Dyes & Pigments, Telecom, and Metals. Of these, the three worth focusing on are those closest to their 52-week highs — Upstream, Dyes & Pigments, and Metals. Upstream makes a comeback after a week’s pause, though with no overlap from last week’s top performers.
Shifting to the 52-week high view, the number of indexes trading close to their highs has dropped considerably, reflecting the broader decline in market breadth. Upstream is currently the only index sitting near its 52-week high. From last week’s top ten, Metal Pipes, Asset Management, Metals, and Communication Equipment are all holding their ground. Jewellery, however, has taken a hit — likely a consequence of the recent duty hike.
A tepid week on sectoral picks as well.
Commodities
This week is one of those rare moments where everything is in the green — across the board, all commodities are up. Gold is up close to 4.5%, Silver around 5%, Copper around 1.7%, Crude Oil has surged 10%, and Natural Gas 7%. What’s driving this? A combination of a depreciating Rupee, elevated crude oil prices, and duty hikes on precious metals.
On the daily timeframe, Gold futures crossed the 50-day moving average and spiked on Wednesday, closing at 1,61,504. Trend followers on Gold were the only happy folks this week; however, the joy was short-lived. Thursday and Friday saw a wave of profit-booking, with gold prices pulling back roughly 3.4% from the spectacular highs reached on Wednesday.
Silver followed a similar pattern — it had crossed the 50 EMA last Wednesday and made a high of 3,06,664, but also pulled back over 10% by Friday. That’s how Silver always is.
For those who’d rather avoid derivatives, there are equity proxies worth considering. For oil and gas exposure, look at the TJI Upstream sectoral index, and for gold, silver, and industrial metals, the TJI Metal Index is worth tracking. These won’t move in lockstep with the underlying commodities, but directionally, you’d capture a meaningful portion of these gains — though again, this is not for short-term players.
Summary
Markets got slammed this week as the PM’s austerity speech spooked investors, dragging major indices down 2% to 3% and wiping out May’s gains.
Nifty slipped below all major daily moving averages into a firm bearish grip. Bank Nifty was the weakest link, while Midcap Nifty stubbornly remained the only positive outlier holding its trend.
Tuesday’s Nifty 0DTE was a massive trending day, delivering a brutal decline that cracked the month-long range. Even with a mid-week bounce, the wild two-way action completely chopped up short-term trend followers.
Reflecting the panic, India VIX jumped sharply. Meanwhile, a falling Rupee and duty hikes sent commodities soaring — Crude spiked, and Gold hit a massive record high before cooling off.
The bottom line: the bias is heavily bearish. Expect clear overhead resistance and lower support levels, with the straddle pricing in a wide expected range for Tuesday. Keep your position sizing tight to survive.
What Caught My Attention This Week
Watch: In the recent meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping — the 2026 Summit — Xi apparently warned Trump about a possible Thucydides Trap. That reminded me of this TED Talk by the person who coined the term: Professor Graham Allison. Note that this TED Talk happened close to 8 years back, and everything you hear in it is as relevant — perhaps more relevant — to what’s happening right now in the context of the US and China. Watch on YouTube
Watch: A Dave Perrell interview of Maria Popova. I’ve been following Brain Pickings ever since it existed — at some point it got rechristened to Marginalian — but over the years the blog has been a constant companion, both in good and bad times. I’m really inspired by her story and her taste. I just learnt that it’s been made a part of the permanent archive of the Library of Congress. Another great watch.
Events to Factor In
Next week is a usual five-day trading week. FOMC Minutes are scheduled for Wednesday, 20 May .
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Until then — stay curious, stay steady, and enjoy your weekend.