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Indian markets resumed their upmove on Monday after a day's breather, helped by buying in IT and select financial shares, as Dalal Street overlooked weakness in global markets. Today, the markets are likely to make flat-to-negative start amid mixed global cues. There will be some cautiousness as GST officers detected over Rs 4,000 crore of Input Tax Credit (ITC) fraud in June quarter 2021-22. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said 7,268 cases of ITC fraud involving Rs 31,233 crore were detected by the Central GST officers in 2020-21. Though, some respite may come later in the day with the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data showing that India witnessed an addition of 16 million jobs in July mainly in the agriculture and construction sectors. Some support may come as the Reserve Bank issued draft guidelines to further liberalise regulatory framework governing overseas investments with a view to promote ease of doing business. The RBI has placed on its website two documents -- draft Foreign Exchange Management (Non-debt Instruments - Overseas Investment) Rules, 2021 and draft Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Regulations, 2021. Also, some support may come as the Finance Ministry on Monday said a Bill to end retrospective taxes imposed on indirect transfer of Indian assets will encourage companies to invest in India and help the country become a $5-trillion economy. Traders may take note of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has launched various micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) cluster development focussed initiatives. Meanwhile, the government has achieved 26.6 per cent of the budget estimates for GST collections in the first three months of the current fiscal. Auto stocks will be in focus as India's overall vehicle retail sales on both sequential and year-on-year basis in July 2021 with low base and rising demand. The data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) showed a rise of 34.12 per cent during the month under review from the level of July 2020. There will be some reaction in oil & gas sector stocks as India's fuel demand rose 7.9 percent in July compared with the same month last year. Data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry showed consumption of fuel, a proxy for oil demand, totalled 16.83 million tonnes. Two more IPOs - Chemplast Sanmar and Aptus Value Housing Finance -are set to open for subscription on Tuesday, 10 August 2021. Chemplast Sanmar has fixed a price band of Rs 530-541 per share, while Aptus Value Housing Finance issue will be sold in a price of Rs 346-353 a share.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Monday with energy companies logging some of the biggest losses as oil prices took another turn lower. Asian markets are trading mixed on Tuesday following overnight declines for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 on Wall Street.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks recovered from afternoon blip and ended on a positive note on Monday led by gains in Mahindra & Mahindra, Axis Bank and Tech Mahindra among others. Markets made optimistic start, as traders took some support with the Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) said services exports have been recording healthy growth rate consistently and are expected to grow by 28 per cent in 2021-22 to take the exports to nearly $ 266 billion. Sentiments remained positive as India Inc said that the Reserve Bank of India's decision to keep key interest rates unchanged and maintain an accommodative monetary policy stance will boost the confidence of businesses and consumers. Besides, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's target of $400 billion in exports this year, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) called it attainable, given the current global situation of post-pandemic economic recovery and rising competitiveness of Indian goods. However, benchmarks cut all of their initial gains in afternoon session but got back on the winning track, after the Ministry of Health said that more than 51.66 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states and union territories so far, through all sources and a further 55,52,070 doses are in the pipeline. Out of the 51.66 crore doses, over 2.29 crore balance and unutilised Covid-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states and union territories and private hospitals to be administered. Traders also took some solace as foreign portfolio investors (FPI) have made a comeback to India's equities segment and made a net investment of Rs 975 crore in the first week of August. Besides, after taking the bold decision to scrap all retrospective tax demands and refund money collected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the move shows his government's commitment to providing businesses stability of investment climate and policy consistency. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 125.13 points or 0.23% to 54,402.85, while the CNX Nifty was up by 20.05 points or 0.12% to 16,258.25.

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