Good morning. Forty-three years ago today, a scrappy Indian cricket team led by Kapil Dev walked into Lord's as 66 to 1 underdogs and walked out as world champions, beating the mighty West Indies in a result so unlikely that most of the country only found out it had happened after the fact. Today's newsletter has its own underdog story: a market everyone expected to keep sinking instead staged a comeback nobody saw coming.
In today's newsletter: oil crashes more than 4% as ships start moving through the Strait of Hormuz again, sending the Sensex surging 791 points, Honasa Consumer makes an unlikely Rs 135 crore bet on vitamins and supplements, and a record-breaking heatwave scorches France, Britain and the rest of Western Europe.
Where the Numbers Landed
Closing levels · June 24, 2026
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SENSEX 76,991.22 +790.54 (+1.04%) |
NIFTY 50 24,021.65 +197.55 (+0.83%) |
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USD/INR 94.65 -0.12% |
BRENT CRUDE $73.74 -4.3% |
Indian equities staged a sharp comeback as easing crude prices and a fresh liquidity injection from the Reserve Bank of India lifted banking and IT stocks, even as the rupee firmed against the dollar and Brent crude tumbled to its lowest level since before the Israel-Iran war began.
Oil Crashes as the Strait of Hormuz Reopens, and the Sensex Rallies 791 Points
Brent crude fell 4.3% to settle at $73.74 a barrel on Wednesday, its lowest level since before the Israel-Iran war began in February, as tankers resumed transiting the Strait of Hormuz and more than 11,000 seafarers who had been stranded in the Persian Gulf began exiting after safety guarantees were secured, CNBC reports.
The relief jumped straight to Dalal Street. The Sensex surged 790.54 points to close at 76,991.22 and the Nifty 50 climbed 197.55 points to 24,021.65, with banking stocks leading the charge after the Reserve Bank of India pumped Rs 1,41,171 crore of fresh liquidity into the system through a seven-day repo auction, Upstox reported.
Thirteen of the National Stock Exchange's fifteen sector indices ended higher, led by a more than 2% jump in realty stocks, while InterGlobe Aviation was the Nifty 50's top gainer, rising 4.77% to Rs 5,198 as the airline cheered cheaper jet fuel, according to Upstox.
This was never really about a single repo auction or a single tanker convoy. It is a reminder that Dalal Street's fortunes are still hostage to events thousands of kilometres away in a shipping lane most Indians could not point to on a map, and that the same forces that crushed oil prices on Wednesday are what powered the rally in Mumbai.
Oil crashed over 4% on Wednesday as ships started moving again through the Strait of Hormuz, and the relief sent the Sensex up 791 points and the Nifty back above 24,000. Forward to whoever in the family group still thinks petrol prices are about to come down.
Most of the coverage focused on the oil story. Less noticed: the RBI quietly pumped Rs 1.4 lakh crore of liquidity into the banking system on the same day, and that money did a lot of the heavy lifting behind the rally in bank stocks.
Sources: CNBC, Upstox · June 24, 2026
Honasa Consumer Buys Into Wellness With a Rs 135 Crore Bet on Fluence Pharma
Mamaearth parent Honasa Consumer acquired a 58% stake in Fluence Pharma for Rs 135 crore, marking its entry into the nutraceuticals business, Storyboard18 reported.
The deal is structured as a secondary share purchase expected to close within eight weeks, and Honasa has an option to buy the remaining 42% of Fluence in two phases over the next five to seven years. The company has set up a new wholly-owned subsidiary, Honasa Health, to run the business.
Founded in 2012 by nutraceutical expert Amit Bhusari and dermatologist Dr. Rajendra Singh Rajput, Fluence Pharma's revenue has grown from Rs 32.24 crore in FY23 to Rs 37.21 crore in FY25, with the company projecting around Rs 40 crore in FY26 and an EBITDA margin above 20%, as Honasa looks to tap into India's roughly Rs 16,000 crore nutraceuticals market.
Sources: Storyboard18 · June 24, 2026
Europe's Earliest-Ever Heatwave Breaks Records From Paris to London
France recorded its hottest day since national measurements began in 1947, with Meteo-France's national temperature indicator hitting 30 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, breaking a record set just a day earlier, NBC News reported.
Britain's Met Office logged the country's hottest June day on record at 35.7 degrees Celsius, while red heat alerts were in force across Britain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, forcing school closures and travel disruptions.
Power cuts hit thousands of homes in northern France, and both the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre cut their visiting hours, as the early-summer heat wave was blamed for a string of deaths across the continent.
Sources: NBC News · June 24, 2026
Technology? Never heard of it.
Qualcomm goes all in on AI software. Qualcomm officially announced a $3.9 billion all-stock deal to acquire Modular, the AI software startup founded by LLVM and Swift creator Chris Lattner, in a bid to challenge Nvidia's grip on AI infrastructure software, Qualcomm announced. |
Zoox gives its robotaxi a glow-up. Amazon-owned Zoox unveiled a redesigned version of its self-driving robotaxi, with comfier seats and brighter displays, ahead of a planned expansion into new US cities later this year, CNBC reports. |
Anthropic keeps raiding Google's AI bench. Two more high-profile Google AI researchers, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, are leaving the Gemini team for Anthropic, the latest in a string of departures from Google's AI ranks, Bloomberg reported. |
Pangaea Revisited
Ukraine hits Russia where it breathes. Ukrainian drones struck Russia's Orenburg gas processing plant, the country's only helium facility and a complex Gazprom says handles 60% of all its gas processing, sparking fires some 1,500 km from the Ukrainian border, ABC News reported. |
Venezuela shaken by back-to-back quakes. A pair of powerful earthquakes struck off Venezuela's coast on Wednesday evening, collapsing buildings in Caracas and triggering a tsunami advisory for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands that was later canceled, NBC News reported. |
France's first Ebola case. A French doctor who had recently returned from treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo tested positive for Ebola, as the DRC's own outbreak surpassed 1,000 infections, Al Jazeera reports. |
Soothing Trump before the summit. NATO chief Mark Rutte met Trump at the White House to defuse tensions among allies ahead of next month's NATO summit, Euronews reported. |
Also, Also, Also
Brazil cruises into the knockouts. Vinicius Junior scored twice as Brazil thrashed Scotland 3-0 to win World Cup Group C, ESPN reported. |
Switzerland tops Group B. Switzerland beat Canada 2-1 to finish first in Group B, sending Canada through to the knockouts as runners-up, ESPN reported. |
More rain on the way, finally. The southwest monsoon advanced further into Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, the remaining parts of Maharashtra, and sections of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, even as the country grapples with one of its driest Junes on record, the India Meteorological Department said. |
A teenager rewrites the record book. Anushka Yadav smashed the national women's hammer throw record with a 67.02m effort at the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, breaking a nine-year-old mark, IANS reported. |