India Daily Briefing

Tata Steel touched a fresh 52-week high of ₹220.91 intraday before closing at ₹219.9, up 3.73%, on volume of 4.6 crore shares worth over ₹1,007 crore. Hindalco mirrored the move, adding 3.61% to ₹1,079 — also a 52-week high. The driver is a combination of China stimulus signals filtering into global steel and aluminium prices and domestic infrastructure spend keeping order books full. For the Nifty Metals index at +3.18% today, this is not a one-day pop — Hindalco is up 70% year-on-year and Tata Steel 47%; both are running momentum that DIIs are clearly not fading.

Infosys hit a 52-week low of ₹1,121 intraday and closed at ₹1,123.4, down 1.48% — a stock now sitting 28.4% below its year-ago level. Tech Mahindra lost 1.29% to ₹1,375, down 12.6% over 12 months. The sector's problem is structural: US clients are cutting discretionary IT spend in a tariff-uncertainty environment, and rupee appreciation eats into dollar-revenue margins. With INFY's 52-week low holding as today's closing price, the technical setup is precarious — a daily close below ₹1,121 opens air down to the ₹1,050-1,070 zone. Watch TCS results guidance and US CPI next week as the two catalysts that could break this range.

FIIs net sold ₹4,703 crore on May 13, following ₹1,959 crore of net selling on May 12 — a two-day outflow of ₹6,662 crore. DIIs absorbed both days aggressively: ₹5,869 crore net bought on May 13 and ₹7,990 crore on May 12, totalling ₹13,859 crore in buying. The DII cushion is the only reason Nifty has not corrected sharply — domestic mutual fund SIP inflows are acting as a structural bid. The risk is FII selling accelerating; at ₹19,077 crore gross sales on May 13 alone, if this pace holds through the week, DII capacity to absorb will be tested. Watch USDINR and US 10-year yield tomorrow for the FII flow direction.