A record IPO month, gold above $4,000 and then a crash, the lowest inflation in eight years, an RBI that held its fire, and the start of a pay commission. Five stories from October.
October was the month money got loud. The IPO market had one of its biggest months on record, gold ran past $4,000 an ounce and then had its worst day in twelve years, and inflation fell to levels most people under twenty had never seen. Here are the five stories that mattered.
1. The IPO rush
Tata Capital raised ₹15,512 crore and LG Electronics India ₹11,607 crore within the same week. LG’s IPO was subscribed about 54 times and listed at roughly a 50% premium. Bankers lined up Groww, Lenskart and PhysicsWallah for November.
2. Gold’s round number, and its reversal
Gold crossed $4,000 an ounce on October 8, and Indian prices passed ₹1.3 lakh per 10 grams ahead of Dhanteras. Then, on October 21, it fell about 6% in a single session, its sharpest drop since 2013, as some of the speculative money that had piled in rushed out.
3. Inflation at an eight-year low
September CPI inflation came in at 1.54%, the lowest since June 2017, as vegetable and pulse prices fell after a good harvest. Core inflation stayed above 4%, so many city households did not feel the relief.
4. The RBI held
On October 1 the RBI kept the repo rate at 5.50%, raised its growth forecast for the year to 6.8% and cut its inflation forecast to 2.6%. The language left the door open to a cut, and markets started pricing one for December.
5. The 8th Pay Commission
The Cabinet approved the terms of reference for the 8th Pay Commission on October 28. Its recommendations, due within 18 months, will reset pay and pensions for more than a crore people.
The thread: cheap money and low inflation made investors bold, and October showed what bold looks like in both directions.
Low inflation and expected rate cuts made investors willing to take risks, which fed both the IPO boom and the gold rush. The same boldness produced gold’s crash. That is the thing to remember about easy-money months: they reward risk on the way up and punish it on the way down, sometimes in the same week.
Sources: NSE/BSE; RBI Monetary Policy Statement, October 1, 2025; MoSPI; Union Cabinet.
- Tata Capital and LG Electronics India led one of the busiest IPO months in the market’s history.
- Gold crossed $4,000 an ounce on October 8, then fell about 6% in a day on October 21.
- September CPI came in at 1.54%, the lowest since 2017.
- The RBI held the repo rate at 5.50% and raised its growth forecast to 6.8%.
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