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Indian markets closed flat Monday but managed to scale record highs, amid volatility as IT stocks dragged while autos, banks, and Reliance Industries lend support to the indices. Today, markets likely to open flat with a positive bias amid mixed global cues. Traders will get encouragement as ratings agency Icra revised up its 2021-22 real GDP growth estimate for India to 9 per cent from the earlier 8.5 per cent. It said a ramp-up in COVID-19 vaccination, healthy advance estimates of kharif (summer) crop and faster government spending were the factors which led to the revision. Some support will come as Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said export figures have hit $185 billion as of September 21. These figures are very encouraging and I compliment the exporters community for this. The minister also said that the current foreign trade policy (FTP) is slated to be extended by another six months--31 March, 2022. Besides, India recorded a spike of less than 20,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours. The country also witnessed 137 deaths, taking the death toll to 447,362. So far, India has recorded 33,694,940 corona cases in total. Traders may take note of report that the finance ministry said the government will borrow Rs 5.03 trillion in the second half of the current fiscal to fund the revenue gap for reviving the pandemic-hit economy. During the first half, the government has raised Rs 7.02 trillion by issuing bonds, the ministry said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Union health ministry said the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country crossed 86 crore. It said more than 88 lakh (88,98,560) vaccine doses have been administered till 7 pm. There will be some reaction in coal  industry stocks with a private report that India’s massive fleet of coal plants are running dangerously low on stockpiles, which may force the nation to buy expensive shipments of the fuel or else risk blackouts. It said stockpiles have fallen to the lowest since November 2017.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Monday as losses for several Big Tech companies checked gains elsewhere in the market. Asian markets are trading mixed on Tuesday as investors remained cautious on uncertainty around China's financially-troubled property developer Evergrande.

Back home, in a session marked by high volatility, Indian equity benchmarks managed to eke out gains to end at record closing highs on Monday led by gains in Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bajaj Auto amid a largely positive trend in global markets. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening, as sentiments got a boost as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Indian economy is on a sustained path of revival and cited rise in GST collections and direct taxes to support her assertion. Traders also took encouragement as the Finance Ministry said net direct tax collection grew 74.4 per cent to Rs 5.70 lakh crore between April 1 to September 22 this fiscal. Traders found some support with Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that India's export performance in the first six months of 2021-22 shows that outbound shipments will exceed the target of $400 billion in the ongoing fiscal year. Adding to the optimism, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said the government plans to increase public sector undertakings' (PSUs) income and create employment through the disinvestment process. However, the indices gave up gains in the first hour of opening to trade in a range bound manner, as traders got anxious with RBI data showed the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $1.47 billion to $639.642 billion in the week ended September 17. Traders also remain concerned with report stating that as many as 470 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns totalling more than Rs 4.37 lakh crore.  However, some buying activity witnessed in afternoon deals, taking support from private report stated that Ratings agency Icra revised up its 2021-22 real GDP growth estimate for India to 9 percent from the earlier 8.5 percent. A ramp-up in COVID-19 vaccination, healthy advance estimates of kharif (summer) crop and faster government spending were the factors which led to the revision. It expects the second half of the fiscal year to have brighter prospects. Besides, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said the net personal income and corporate taxes collection grew 74 per cent to Rs 5.70 lakh crore so far this fiscal, driven mainly by advance tax and TDS payments. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 29.41 points or 0.05% to 60,077.88 and the CNX Nifty was up by 1.90 points or 0.01% to 17,855.10.

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