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Indian markets ended lower on Monday weighed by financial, IT and energy stocks. However, metal and pharma stocks surged capping some losses. Today, the markets are likely to make negative start amid lackluster cues from Asian peers. Traders will be concerned as S&P Global cut its growth forecasts for some of Asia's top economies including India, the Philippines and Malaysia, offsetting upgrades to China and South Africa and much of Latin America. The estimates, which feed into S&P's closely-followed sovereign ratings, saw India's growth projection chopped to 9.5% from 11% due to its COVID-19 outbreak. However, some respite may come later in the day as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the much-awaited fiscal package to revive the economy ravaged by the second pandemic wave, keeping the fiscal outgo limited for the current year. The Rs 6.28-trillion package included a new credit guarantee scheme for health, tourism and micro borrowers, besides expanding the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) by half to Rs 4.5 trillion and extending the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana. The government announced Rs 1.1-trillion loan guarantees for pandemic-affected sectors. Of that Rs 50,000 crore will be for scaling up medical infrastructure in non-metropolitan cities. Traders may take some encouragement as witnessing a sharp decline, India recorded 37,037 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours with 907 fatalities, Worldometer showed. Some support may also come as Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said the target of mopping up Rs 1.75 lakh crore from disinvestments of some of the public sector companies, including LIC and BPCL during the current fiscal, is on track and groundwork is being prepared for the goal. Travel sector stocks will be in focus as the Centre announced free visas for 500,000 tourists and a loan guarantee scheme to support recognised tour operators and tourist guides whose business has been disrupted due to Covid-19 pandemic. There will be some reaction in oil & gas industry stocks with report that India’s natural gas producers expect some cheer as the domestic gas price is set to rise after having fallen for two consecutive years.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Monday fueled by tech stocks as investors expect a robust earnings season while interest rates remain low. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Tuesday fueled by tech stocks as investors expect a robust earnings season while interest rates remain low.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended in red on Monday led by losses in index heavyweights Titan Company, TCS, HCL Technologies and Reliance Industries. The benchmarks opened higher, as the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) is expecting India’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow 11.5 percent in Q1 (first quarter) and 8.4-10.1 per cent for the whole year 2021-22. According to NCAER's estimates, the economic growth had contracted by 7.3 percent during 2020-21. It has also pitched for strong fiscal support to push economic growth. However, key gauges gave up gains mirroring cautious trend in other Asian markets as a spike in coronavirus cases across the region over the weekend hurt investor sentiment. Some cautiousness came in as the government's total liabilities stood at Rs 116.21 lakh crore at the end of March 2021, up 6.36 per cent from the previous quarter. The total liabilities (including liabilities under the Public Account) of the government were Rs 109.26 lakh crore at end-December 2020. Also, RBI data showed that sliding from a lifetime high, India's forex reserves declined by $4.148 billion to reach $603.933 billion for the week ended June 18 due to a fall in gold and currency assets. Markets continued their lackluster trade in late afternoon session, as India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said its earlier estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 10.1 per cent for the current financial year (FY22) is unlikely to hold due to the speed and scale of Covid 2.0. It now expects GDP growth to come in at 9.6 per cent in FY22. This is however contingent upon India vaccinating its entire adult population by December 31. Some concern also came with S&P Global Ratings stating the Covid pandemic could worsen structural deficits and indebtedness of states, despite a likely rebound in the economy over the next 12-24 months. Meanwhile, the government has extended the second phase of FAME India scheme by two years till March 31, 2024, for faster adoption of electric mobility and development of its manufacturing ecosystem in the country. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 189.45 points or 0.36% to 52,735.59, while the CNX Nifty was down by 45.65 points or 0.29% to 15,814.70.

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