Sensex, Nifty Head for Weakest Nine-Month Performance in 15 Years

Indian benchmark indices are heading towards their weakest performance for the first nine months of a calendar year in 15 years, after a difficult 2026 marked by heavy foreign investor selling and pressure on several large companies. 

Invest in Indian Markets and Unlock Future Potential With 5paisa!

Open Account Now

The BSE Sensex has fallen 15% during the first nine months of 2026, while the Nifty 50 has declined 13%. 

The last time the benchmarks saw a steeper fall during the January-September period was in 2011. Back then, the Sensex had dropped 19.8% and the Nifty had lost 18.9%. 

The picture has improved slightly since the end of March. Both benchmarks are around 1% above their closing 52-week lows recorded on March 30, when the Sensex stood at 71,947.55 and the Nifty at 22,331.40. 

Foreign investments repatriated ₹2.5 trillion 

Foreign portfolio investors have repatriated ₹2.5 trillion ($26.75 billion) in Indian equities within the first nine months of 2026, on the basis of data released by NSDL, according to the report. 

In contrast, domestic institutional investors invested ₹6.28 trillion in equities during the same period. 

The year has also seen threats arising from geopolitical events, increasing crude oil prices, increasing bond yields, and adverse rupee-to-dollar dynamics. 

Some of India’s largest firms have faced the brunt of the fall. Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, and Bharti Airtel saw falls ranging between 16% to 27%. 

TCS, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki India, ITC, Mahindra & Mahindra, and HCL Technologies have seen sharper falls in the range of 19% to 37%. 

Mid-caps and Small-caps perform better 

The underperformance of the indices in the headlines has not been even across the market. 

While the Nifty Smallcap 100 index has appreciated by 8.35% in the first nine months of the year, the Nifty Midcap index has fallen by 1.9%. Both have performed better than the benchmark indices. 

Of the 1,345 stocks in the BSE Smallcap index, 651 delivered positive returns during the period. 

Within that group, 83 stocks more than doubled, while 125 gained between 50% and 99%. Another 205 stocks advanced between 20% and 49%. 

IT stocks take the biggest hit 

Among all sectors, technology stocks are the ones that have performed the worst during the first nine months of 2026. The Nifty IT index fell by 27%. 

The Nifty FMCG index fell by 19%, while Nifty Oil & Gas fell by 13.6%. The Nifty Financials index has fallen by 10.7%. 

There are some sectors that have been performing positively despite the overall market underperformance. Indices for pharmaceuticals, healthcare, metals and capital goods have increased by 13%-19%. 

As September was coming to an end, there was clear distinction within the market: benchmark indices along with some heavyweights faced tough performance in 2026, while some other sections of the market have been performing well.