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Indian markets ended a choppy session one percent lower on Thursday, amid weakness across global markets after the Fed signalled a rate hike in March. Today, the markets are likely to make cautious start amid mixed global cues. Traders will be eyeing the Union Budget 2022-23 to be presented by Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2022, in paperless form, for further cues. However, some support may come as commerce and industry ministry said India’s electronic goods exports grew 49% in April-December 2021 at $11 billion over $7.4 billion during same period last year with the US and the UAE being the top two destinations. Traders may take note of report that the Income Tax department said it has issued refunds worth Rs 1.62 lakh crore to more than 1.79 crore taxpayers so far this fiscal. This includes 1.41 crore refunds for 2020-21 fiscal amounting to Rs 27,111.40 crore. Meanwhile, India has initiated an anti-dumping probe against Ursodeoxvcholic Acid, used in the medical field, imported from China and Korea following a complaint by a domestic player. The commerce ministry's investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has started the probe into alleged dumping of this acid, which is used as medical therapy in gallstone disease (cholelithiasis) and for biliary sludge. There will be some buzz in the gold related stocks as the World Gold Council (WGC) said India's gold consumption is expected to rise further in 2022 after jumping 79% last year as pent-up demand and an improvement in consumer confidence are seen boosting retail jewellery sales. Renewable energy sector stocks will be in focus as a private report stated that India’s renewable energy sector has the potential to employ around one million people by 2030, and most of the new jobs would be generated by small-scale renewable energy projects. There will be some reaction sugar stocks as the first estimate released by the trade body AISTA stated that sugar production in India, the world's second largest producing nation after Brazil, is estimated to increase by 2.90 per cent to 31.9 million tonnes in the ongoing 2021-22 marketing year. Telecom stocks are likely to be in limelight as the DoT has agreed with the telecom players' plea to not proceed with the process of adopting 5Gi as a national standard.

The US markets ended lower on Thursday as markets still processed Fed’s announcements. Asian markets are trading mixed on Friday following weakness on Wall Street indices.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks recovered partially from day’s lows but failed to erase all the losses and ended with around a percent lower on Thursday, amid weakness in the global market that declined as the US Federal Reserve’s signal to steadily tighten policy soured global investor sentiment. The benchmark indices opened on a sharply lower note, as traders got anxious with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest update of World Economic Outlook has cut India's economic growth forecast to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year ending March 31 (FY22) from its earlier projection of a 9.5 per cent GDP growth, on concerns over the impact of a spread of new variant of coronavirus on business activity and mobility. The Indian economy had contracted by 7.3 per cent in the 2020-21 fiscal year. Continues selling in FIIs also weighed on the markets. As per provisional data available on the NSE, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 7,094.48 crore on January 25. Key gauges extended losses in afternoon deals, as sentiments remain dampened with Icra Ratings’ statement that the securitisation volumes in microfinance loans, which saw improvement in the first nine months of FY22, may witness some impact in the fourth quarter (Q4FY22) due to concerns around the third wave of COVID infections that may affect the repayment capabilities of the borrowers who have a marginal financial profile. Traders were cautious, as India's rank improved one place to 85 among 180 countries in a corruption perception index (CPI) of 2021, according to a new report by Transparency International which, however, raised concern over the country's democratic status. However healthy buying in the banking, auto and finance space pared the losses significantly. Traders also took some support with Vedanta’s Chairman Anil Agarwal statement that India is on the growth path with innovation and digitalisation and stressed that government policies have created tremendous resources available for deployment in the country. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 581.21 points or 1.00% to 57,276.94 and the CNX Nifty was down by 167.80 points or 0.97% to 17,110.15

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