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Indian markets rose in tandem with global stocks on Monday as bargain buying returned to the Street. Today, the markets are likely to continue previous session’s gaining momentum with positive start tracking firm global cues. Sentiments will get a boost as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said foreign direct investments into the country is on the rise, jumping to $12.1 billion in May this year. He also said the government is working on a mission mode to achieve exports target of $400 billion in 2021-22. Some support will also come as Icra Ratings’ report said with the easing of COVID-19-related restrictions by the states, the roots of the economic recovery deepened in July 2021. The report said the unlocking in the country has manifested itself in improving performance across various high frequency industrial and service sector indicators, mobility and toll collections in July 2021. However, there may be some cautiousness with a private report that the government said summer-sown crop planting in India has been lagging as the country received below-normal rainfall, raising concerns about food grain production in Asia's third biggest economy. Also, a private report stated that India’s volatile and below-normal monsoon rainfall may create challenges for inflation and economic growth in rural areas over the medium-term. Meanwhile, India recorde11,359 new Covid-19 cases and 266 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking its tally to 32,460,328 and the death toll to 434,784. Infrastructure industry stocks will be in focus as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that will look to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors ranging from power to road and railways. There will be some reaction in coal industry stocks as the government identified 160 coal mining assets worth an estimated at Rs 28,747 crore for monetisation over four years till FY25. Besides, Chemplast Sanmar and Aptus Value Housing Finance India will make their stock market debut on bourses on August 24. Chemplast Sanmar will re-list on the stock market after being delisted from the exchanges nearly a decade ago. The Rs 3,850-crore IPO of Chemplast Sanmar was subscribed 2.17 times. While Aptus Value Housing Finance was subscribed 17.20 times.

The US markets ended higher on Monday on stronger-than-expected home sales data and full regulatory approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Tuesday on an extended bounce on Wall Street as investors drew comfort from full approval granted to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and on easing worries of an imminent tapering of stimulus by the Federal Reserve.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks snapped their two-day losing streak and ended the session in green terrain on Monday led by gains in TECK, IT and Telecom stocks. Indices opened a day with gap up, as traders took encouragement with the government stating that the country’s agri-exports are estimated to grow 15% in FY22, adding that export of products like rice, meat, cereals and dairy items rose 44.3% on-year to $4.81 billion during April-June 2021. Their exports were $3.33 billion in the year ago period. Sentiments were upbeat as investments in the Indian capital markets through participatory notes (P-notes) rose to Rs 1.02 lakh crore till July-end, making it the highest level in last 40 months. This also marks the fourth consecutive monthly growth. However, benchmarks soon erased gains as traders got anxious with RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ statement that the resurgence in inflation in May and June above the upper threshold has reignited the debate on the appropriate monetary policy response. Some concern also came as RBI data showed India's foreign exchange reserves decreased by $2.099 billion to stand at $619.365 billion for the week ended August 13 due to a fall in core currency assets and gold. During the late morning session, key indices came back in green, as Crisil Ratings revised the credit quality outlook of India Inc for fiscal 2022 to positive from cautiously optimistic earlier, predicated on a sustained recovery in demand after the blip caused by the second wave of Covid-19 afflictions in the first quarter. The increase in coverage of vaccinations should also mitigate the impact of a third wave if it comes about. In another positive development, , Retirement fund body, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in its latest ‘Provisional Estimate of Net Payroll’ data report has showed that India created 1283448 new jobs in the month of June 2021. Traders took a note of Icra Ratings’ report that despite the massive windfall gains from fuel taxes and GST collections, the Centre continues to borrow heavily from the market, with the total drawdown crossing 90 per cent of the notified amount so far or 46 per cent of the total borrowings for FY22, even though the second quarter is only halfway. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 226.47 points or 0.41% to 55,555.79, while the CNX Nifty was up by 45.95 points or 0.28% to 16,496.45.

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