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Indian markets rose on Thursday led by gains in banking and IT stocks, however, losses in energy stocks and heavyweight RIL kept the indices from hitting record highs. Today, markets are likely to begin first trading session of the July derivative series on a flat-to-positive note amid favourable global cues. Some support will come as Chief Economic Adviser K.V. Subramanian said food inflation is likely to moderate on account of the twin impact of opening up of economic activities and good monsoon and attributed the rise in food prices to restrictions imposed by several states during April-May to deal with the second wave of Covid-19.  Traders may take note of report that with domestic retail fuel prices jumping to record high on rising international oil rates, India has pressed oil cartel OPEC for affordable oil price within a reasonable band and that the producers should phase out production cuts. Besides, industry body Nasscom said India's share in the global engineering and research and development (ER&D) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12-13 per cent to reach $63 billion by 2025. However, there may be some cautiousness as India reported on Thursday 54,069 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, data from the health ministry showed. It had 1,321 new fatalities, taking the total death toll to 39,1981. Meanwhile, capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is planning to come out with a framework on special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which will enable listing of startups on domestic stock exchanges. NBFCs stocks will be in focus as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tied down a non-banking financial company’s ability to pay dividend to certain factors, including how much bad debt it has in its book and whether it has declared it correctly. There will be some reaction in telecom stocks as Moody's Investors Service in a report said countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including India, that are late in adopting 5G technology will get insignificant revenue from the services.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday as traders were encouraged to see a bipartisan deal on infrastructure spending as well as some positive reports on the economy. Asian markets are trading in green on Friday tracking gains on Wall Street overnight after US President Joe Biden embraced a bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal.

Back home, Indian benchmark indices ended the final session of the June series of futures & options (F&O) over half a percent higher, with major contribution from IT, TECK and Banking stocks amid a positive trend in global markets. Key indices made optimistic start, as traders got some support with the commerce and industry ministry in its latest data has showed that foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows into India increased by 60 percent to $4.44 billion in April 2021 as against $2.77 billion in the same month last year. Besides, the country has attracted total FDI inflow, including equity, re-invested earnings and capital, of $6.24 billion during April, 2021, which is 38 percent higher as compared to inflow of $4.53 billion in April 2020. Sentiments remained positive after the government has notified the accounting standards for small and medium companies that revise the turnover and borrowing limits as well as help in making disclosure requirements less onerous. Besides, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will actively pursue cases against economic offenders to bring back defrauded money of banks. Traders overlooked S&P Global Ratings’ report in which it slashed India's Gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 9.5 percent for the current fiscal (FY21), from 11 percent earlier, and warned of risk to the outlook from further waves of COVID pandemic. It lowered the growth outlook saying that a severe second COVID-19 outbreak in April and May led to lockdowns imposed by states and sharp contraction in economic activity. Stating that permanent damage to private and public sector balance sheets will constrain growth over the next couple of years, it projected India's growth at 7.8 percent in the next fiscal ending March 31, 2023. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 392.92 points or 0.75% to 52,699.00, while the CNX Nifty was up by 103.50 points or 0.66% to 15,790.45.

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