Three months ago, the Sensex lost 1,836 points in a single session. Today it crossed 75,500 for the first time ever.
The Friday rally — 1,695 points up, Nifty closing at 23,622 — completed an arc nobody was scripting in March. Back then, oil had broken $100, the rupee was at 93.98, and ₹14-15 lakh crore of investor wealth vanished in a day. FPIs pulled $11 billion in March alone — the worst monthly outflow ever.
Then the war ended. Sort of.
What Actually Drove the Sensex Rally
The market didn’t recover on hope. It recovered because oil fell $40.
Brent peaked at $126 on April 30 — a four-year high. Then Trump announced the Iran deal MoU was “largely negotiated” on May 23. Hormuz would reopen, the US blockade would end, and crude cracked back below $90. India imports 85-90% of its oil. Every dollar off Brent is a direct macro win.
The FPIs noticed. They’ve been net buyers in June, drawn back by valuations after the April-May correction. What kept the floor under all this was domestic — while foreigners pulled ₹2 lakh crore, DIIs pumped in ₹3 lakh crore. SIPs, insurance, pension money: the structural shift meant the market never collapsed enough to make new highs impossible once foreign flows returned.
The Rupee Didn’t Get the Memo
Here’s what the celebration hides. The Sensex is at a record high. The rupee is at 95.11.
That’s barely off the 95.80 record low hit on May 13. The equity rally is one story. The currency damage is another — the oil bill is still elevated, gold imports needed a duty doubling to control, and the current account deficit doesn’t care what the Sensex does.
The RBI held rates at 5.25% on June 5, cut growth to 6.6%, raised inflation to 5.1%. The recovery is real. The economy hasn’t quite gotten the memo either.
And the Iran deal? Still not signed. Hormuz hasn’t actually reopened. The 75,500 number is a bet — that the war stays over, that oil keeps falling, that the deal closes. If any link in that chain breaks, the next 1,836-point day is closer than the record makes it look.