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Indian markets scaled record highs during the session on Thursday and closed almost a percent higher led by buying across the sectors. Today, markets are likely to open in green with minor gains amid positive global cues. Investors are eyeing the Services PMI data for August, due to be announced later in the day. Traders will be taking encouragement as the commerce ministry's provisional data India's exports jumped 45.17 per cent to $33.14 billion in August as against $22.83 billion in the same month last year. The exports during April-August 2021 stood at $163.67 billion, an increase of 66.92 per cent over $98.05 billion in the same period a year ago. Some support will come as Reserve Bank of India's deputy governor M Rajeshwar Rao said the account aggregator ecosystem in the country is in a nascent stage and there is a need for its orderly growth. Traders may take note of report that India and the United Kingdom expressed their commitment to working out a free trade agreement and said the two countries would be ambitious while negotiating on services in the deal. However, a consistent rise in the coronavirus cases and fear of a third Covid wave is driving investors towards defensive bets. India reported over 45,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. This was also the biggest single-day rise in two months. Meanwhile, RBI data showed Indian companies raised over $3.43 billion from foreign markets through external commercial borrowings (ECBs) in July this year, up by nearly 60 per cent from a year ago. Telecoms stocks will be in limelight as regulator Trai directed all telecom service providers to immediately ensure that only tariffs that are reported to it are offered through their channels, distributors or retailers, as it cracked the whip on discounts allegedly being doled out by some channel partners to lure customers from other networks. There will be some buzz in aviation stocks as accelerated vaccination drive as well as higher rate of economic activity rose India's domestic air passenger traffic in July 2021 on a year-on-year basis. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India's domestic air passenger volume -- measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) -- was one of the highest amongst major aviation markets such as Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and the US. Sugar industry stocks will be in floccus as with a private report that the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) has once again written to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to increase the Minimum Sale Price (MSP) of sugar from the current Rs 31 per kg to atleast Rs 34-35 per kg in line with the recent increase in Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) sugarcane to Rs 290 per quintal. There will be some reaction in power industry stocks as India Ratings said all India energy demand recovered by 11 per cent to 124.8 billion units in July 2021, on account of stabilising economic activities and decline in COVID-19 cases. In the primary, the three-day IPOs of Vijaya Diagnostics and Ami Organics will close today.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday after data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell to lowest since March 2020. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Friday as investors look ahead to the release of a private survey on China’s services sector activity in August.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks resumed record closing high spree after a day’s blip on the weekly F&O expiry day, tracking gains in index majors TCS, Hindustan Unilever and Ultratech Cement. Markets witnessed the continuation of a positive trend, as investors cheered RBI’s statement that India's holding of IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) has gone up to SDR 13.66 billion which is equivalent to USD 19.41 billion as per exchange rate. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes the general SDR allocation to its members in proportion to their existing quotas in the multilateral lending agency. Traders also took some support with the finance ministry stating that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection topped the Rs 1-lakh-crore mark for the second straight month in August at Rs 1.12 lakh crore, signalling accelerating economic activity. Key gauges added more gains in afternoon session, taking support from Jayanth R Varma, who is a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank, stating that the ongoing economic recovery will quickly take India above the pre-pandemic levels in most sectors of the economy except contact-intensive services. He noted that the improved health of the Indian financial sector is also a positive factor for economic growth. Traders also took a note of report that the country received 24 per cent less than normal rainfall in August, a vast deviation from the IMD's predictions for the month, but latest forecasts say it is expected to be above normal in September. Meanwhile, markets regulator Sebi eased the framework about the time period for introducing liquidity enhancement schemes on securities by stock exchanges. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 514.33 points or 0.90% to 57,852.54, while the CNX Nifty was up by 157.90 points or 0.92% to 17,234.15.

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