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Indian markets ended at record closing highs Thursday after boosted by strong gains in IT and realty stocks. Today, the markets are likely to make cautious start amid weakness in global peers. Rise in coronavirus cases likely to dampen sentiments in the markets. India has recorded a spike of 39,072 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total caseload to 31,025,875, according to Worldometer. The death count increased to 412,563 with 544 new fatalities, the data showed. There will be some cautiousness with a private survey showing that the second Covid wave, along with overall economic downturn brought about by the pandemic, seems to have hit the consumers and general public hard with as many as 79 per cent of them believing their household earnings will decline in the current financial year (FY22). However, some respite may come later in the day with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) report that the tapering of the second wave, coupled with an aggressive vaccination push, has brightened near-term prospects for the Indian economy, and the Indian economy may have grown 22.1 per cent in the April-June quarter. Some support may come as the data released by the Commerce Ministry showed that the country's exports rose by 48.34 per cent to $32.5 billion on account of healthy growth in shipments of petroleum products, gems and jewellery, and chemicals, leather and marine goods. Traders may take note of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ statement that financial inclusion will continue to be a policy priority for the central to make the post-pandemic recovery more equitable and sustainable. Das said the Reserve Bank of India will very soon be coming out with the first financial inclusion index, which will assess progress in terms of access, usage and quality. Banking stocks will be in focus as RBI data showed that bank credit grew by 6 per cent to Rs 109.31 lakh crore and deposits increased by 9.76 per cent to Rs 154.51 lakh crore in the fortnight ended July 2. IT stocks will be in limelight as markets would react to results by Wipro, Cyient, Tata Elxsi and L&T Infotech in early trade. Meanwhile, Tatva Chintan Pharma Chem will launch its Rs 500-crore IPO at a price band of Rs 1073-1083 per share. The issue will open on July 16 and close on July 20, 2021. There will be lots of earnings announcements too, to keep the markets in action.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s persistent dovishness raises concern about the sustainability of the economic recovery. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Friday as investors await the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy statement.

Back home, extending their winning streak for third straight session, Indian equity benchmarks ended the Thursday’s trade at their record closing high levels with frontline gauges settling above their crucial 53,100 (Sensex) and 15,900 (Nifty) levels for the first time led by buying in realty and IT stocks. Sentiments remained upbeat throughout the day with key gauges making a positive start after Crisil’s latest report stating that the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) insistence on companies opening current accounts with banks is among the factors that has helped large lenders such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI raise their shares of the competitive corporate banking market in 2020. It stated apart from the RBI rules, the government's mega merger to reduce the number of state-owned banks has also helped in the trend. Market participants also remained optimistic on report that India's new Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has started dialling oil-producing nations to impress upon them for a need to make prices affordable for consumers. Puri, who last week called Energy Minister of Qatar, dialled his counterpart in the UAE, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber. Markets extended gains in second half of the trade as traders continued to remain upbeat with private report stating IT spending in the country is expected to grow at 8 per cent to $92.7 billion in 2021. The growth at 8 percent is a shade less than the world average of 8.6 per cent and global spends on information technology are estimated to come at $4.2 trillion. Some support also came with ICRA Ratings’ survey stating that around 42 percent of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) expect a growth of more than 15 per cent in their asset under management (AUM) in fiscal 2021-22. It said NBFCs growth expectations have moderated vis-a-vis the expectations six months earlier. Traders shrugged off private report that even though the second wave has ebbed, the increased presence of the Delta variant and the subsequent mutations of the coronavirus makes the third wave a real risk for the country. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 254.80 points or 0.48% to 53,158.85, while the CNX Nifty was up by 70.25 points or 0.44% to 15,924.20.

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