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Indian markets rebounded from near two-month lows and settled over 1 percent higher on Friday, driven by gains in beaten-down bank and metal stocks. Today, the start of holiday shortened week is likely to be positive tracking gains in Asian peers. The domestic market was closed on Monday on account of Holi festival and will also remain close on Friday on account of Good Friday. Traders will be taking encouragement with IMF’s statement that India's economy is on the path of gradual recovery, real GDP growth, return to positive territory in fourth quarter of 2020. And that's for the first time actually since the start of the pandemic and it's supported by a pickup in gross, fixed capital formation. Besides, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, after meeting Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, said India and the United States will look at ways to expand its trade relations and cooperate on pending bilateral issues. However, concern over the impact of rising Covid-19 cases may keep the markets volatile. With 56,119 cases recorded in the last 24 hours, India tally has soared to 12,095,329, Worldometer showed. With active cases hitting 542,353, India is now the 6th-worst hit country. The death toll from the deadly infection jumped to 162,147. There may be some cautiousness as Union Minister Piyush Goyal said India's goods exports will stand at $290 billion for the financial year ending March, 7 per cent short of the shipments in the previous fiscal. However, the minister said this was great considering the country has bounced back so quickly in a challenging year. India's goods exports stood at $313 billion in FY20. Banking stocks will be in limelight with report that the government is unlikely to take zero-coupon bond route to further recapitalise public sector banks after the Reserve Bank expressed some concerns in this regard. Coal industry stocks will be in focus with a private report that India's coal import dropped 13.6 per cent to 196.13 million tonne (MT) in the April-February period of the ongoing fiscal year. The country had imported 227.23 MT of coal in the year-ago period. There will be some reaction in media and entertainment industry stocks as a joint report by consultancy firm EY and FICCI stated that after a tough calendar year 2020, the domestic media and entertainment industry is set to rebound in 2021. Meanwhile, Nazara Technologies shares are set to be listed on the stock exchanges today. The issue was subscribed 175.46 times, with the retail portion subscribed 75.29 times, non-institutional investors' portion subscribed 389.89 times and qualified institutional buyers segment attracted 103.77 subscription.

The US markets ended mostly in red on Monday as global banks said they faced potential losses from a hedge fund’s default on margin calls. Asian markets are trading mostly higher on Tuesday as investors shook off earlier worries about a hedge fund default that roiled global banking stocks overnight, while rekindled concerns about inflation pushed bond yields higher.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks snapped their two-day losing streak and ended Friday's session with over one percent gains each amid healthy buying in metal, consumer durables, telecom and basic materials stocks. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening and stayed in green for whole day, on the back of strong global cues. Traders took some encouragement with CARE Ratings’ report that Indian economy will grow in the range of 11-11.2 per cent in the coming financial year. It said the high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in FY22 will be on the back of low base effect in FY21 and broad-based recovery across the economy. Some support also came with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das expressed confidence that the second wave of Covid infections will not derail India’s economic journey. Market participants also took a note of former RBI Governor D Subbarao stating that inflation targeting has worked well and the government must stay with it, and the framework is going to work well in the period ahead also. He also said low inflation contributes to sustainable growth. The markets extended early gains in late afternoon session, as sentiments remained up-beat with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stating that India's economy is on the path of gradual recovery, real GDP growth, return to positive territory in fourth quarter of 2020. And that's for the first time actually since the start of the pandemic and it's supported by a pickup in gross, fixed capital formation. Some optimism also came with Chief Economic Advisor K V Subramanian’s statement that the investment climate is going well in India and the private sector should skill their workforce in the interest of its business. Traders also remain energized amid reports that as part of furthering the ease of doing business in the country, the government is set to introduce a single-window clearance mechanism for investors by mid-April in order to attract greater foreign investment. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 568.38 points or 1.17% to 49,008.50, while the CNX Nifty was up by 182.40 points or 1.27% to 14,507.30. 

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