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Indian markets ended higher on Friday, led by IT, oil & gas and PSU banking stocks. Today, the start of new week is likely to be flat-to-negative tracking weakness in global peers. Investors may remain on sidelines ahead of macroeconomic data to be out on October 12. There will be some cautiousness as former Reserve Bank Governor C Rangarajan said India becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025 is impossible under the current circumstance and the country needs to grow at nine per cent per annum for the next five years in order to achieve that. Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra has called for a statewide bandh today, October 11. However, some respite may come later in the day as the World Bank has said in its latest report Buoyed by an increase in public investment and incentives to boost manufacturing, India's economy is expected to grow by 8.3 per cent in the fiscal year 2021-22, less than the previous projection early this year before the country was hit by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some support may come as exporters stated that aggressive marketing of products, timely implementation of free trade agreements that are under negotiations and affordable credit to MSME players would help in taking the country's merchandise exports to $500 billion in the next financial year. Traders may take note of Union minister Jitendra Singh's statement that India will be among the top five countries to be recognised as a global bio-manufacturing hub by 2025, noting that India's bio-economy is on way to achieve $150-billion target from the current $70 billion. Power stocks will be in focus as power ministry data showed that Power consumption dipped by nearly 2 per cent or by 72 million units (MU) to 3,828 MU on Saturday compared to 3,900 MU on Friday, showing slight improvement in supply situation across the country amid coal shortage crisis. There will be some reaction in fertilizer industry stocks after Fertiliser Minister Mansukh Mandaviya directed all manufacturers not to increase retail prices of DAP and other phosphatic fertilisers as part of the government’s efforts to ensure the availability of crop nutrients at affordable prices during the ongoing Rabi season. Solar power industry related stocks will be in limelight as the government is mulling delaying the imposition of customs duty on imported solar equipment or allowing extension of deadline for completion of domestic solar projects which are facing supply uncertainties from vendors in China.There will be some result announcements to keep the markets in action.

The US markets ended a volatile session largely lower on Friday after data showed US jobs rose far less than expected in September. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Monday as global inflation angst favoured commodities as a hedge over US equities.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks extended gains to a second straight day, with Nifty 50 closed at record closing high while Sensex ended a few points shy of an all-time high on Friday after the Reserve Bank kept the key benchmark rates unchanged for the eighth consecutive time and promised to maintain the status-quo on rates as long as necessary to revive growth. Markets opened in green and continued its positive run through the day, as sentiments got boost with Ficci stating that India’s GDP is expected to grow at 9.1 per cent in 2021-22 as economic recovery, post the second wave of the pandemic, seems to be holding ground. Ficci’s Economic Outlook Survey also noted that the ongoing festive season would support this momentum. Sentiments improved further with domestic rating agency Crisil, ahead of the filing of quarterly earnings by companies, said India Inc is set to post an 18-20 per cent revenue growth for July-September as compared to the year-ago period. It said the handsome growth in the topline will be driven by both higher volumes and higher commodity prices. However, key indices cut some of their initial gains in the afternoon session, as traders got anxious with Fitch Ratings’ report in which it has further lowered India's Gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2022 (FY22) to 8.7 percent from 10 percent projected in June as a result of the severe second virus wave. But, markets regained some traction to end higher by over half percent, as some optimism remained among traders with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that the US has huge investment surpluses that can be used in developing infrastructure in India and make it a manufacturing base to help American economy grow and provide goods and services at affordable and competitive prices. Additional support also came with Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian’s statement that the focus of the government policies in the last seven years has been on enabling competition in the economy, stressing this is partly responsible for growth of startups. He expressed hope that the country will witness double-digit growth in the current fiscal year aided by a prudent mix of supply and demand side measures undertaken by the government. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 381.23 points or 0.64% to 60,059.06 and the CNX Nifty was up by 104.85 points or 0.59% to 17,895.20.