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Indian markets erased early gains in the last hour of the session and ended lower on Wednesday. Today, the markets are likely to get cautious start amid mixed global cues. Rising coronavirus cases globally are likely to dent sentiments in the domestic markets. Besides, India added 9,283 new coronavirus cases and 437 related fatalities in last 24 hours. However, traders will be taking encouragement with a private report that Official data print on the GDP will show a 7.8 per cent expansion on a year-on-year basis for the September 2021 quarter. It added real GDP will grow 9.4 per cent in FY22 and decelerate to 7.5 per cent for FY23 as the base effects result in the higher growth in the ongoing fiscal wear-off. Some support will come as the Finance Ministry said India and the US have agreed for a transitional approach on equalisation levy or digital tax on e-commerce supplies beginning April 1. Some optimism may come with Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla’s statement that India has set an ambitious target of $400 billion of exports for the year 2021-22. Traders may take note of industry body Assocham’s statement that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should continue with an accommodative interest rate stance as long as necessary to sustain and further push the pace of economic growth. Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet has decided to extend till March the free foodgrains supply under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to provide relief to ration cardholders. There will be some buzz in the aviation stocks as Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal said international passenger flights are expected to regularise possibly by the end of the year. Banking stocks will be in focus as government think-tank Niti Aayog proposed setting up of full-stack 'digital banks', which would principally rely on the internet and other proximate channels to offer their services and not physical branches, to mitigate the financial deepening challenges being faced in the country. There will be some reaction in telecom stocks as Telecom regulator Trai proposed to remove charges on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) messages for mobile banking and payment services to promote digital transactions.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday lifted by gains in Nvidia and other tech stocks, while Gap and Nordstrom shares tumbled following weak quarterly reports. Asian markets are trading mixed on Thursday as investors reacted to Bank of Korea’s decision to announce interest rate hike.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks erased initial gains in the last hour to end half a percent lower on Wednesday on the back of fresh selling pressure in select index heavyweights like Maruti Suzuki, Infosys, ITC and Reliance Industries. For most part of the day, benchmarks traded firmly higher, as traders got encouragement with private report stated that Indian GDP will grow at 8.5 per cent in 2021-22, and the rate will accelerate further to 9.8 per cent in 2022-23. It also expects consumption to be an important contributor to growth in 2022, as the economy fully re-opens driven by a notable improvement in the virus situation and adequate progress on vaccination. Some optimism also came with India Ratings and Research’s (Ind-Ra) report stated that the average collections across its rated securitization transactions have inched up to 79 percent in September 2021 from 70 percent in May 2021 as the economy started to open up due to acceleration in vaccine rollout. However, domestic markets failed to continue positive momentum and closed with losses amid weak global cues. Market participants overlooked US India Business Council stating that regular engagement between India and the United States under the bilateral Trade Policy Forum mechanism will help remove barriers to trade, facilitate higher levels of investment and increase two-way trade in goods and services. Traders also paid no heed towards Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the money taken away from the banks will be taken back as the government is actively pursuing the cases of loan defaulters and will not let them go scot-free, particularly those who have fled the country. Finally, the BSE Sensex fall 323.34 points or 0.55% to 58,340.99 and the CNX Nifty was down by 88.30 points or 0.50% to 17,415.05.

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