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Markets likely to make gap-up opening on Thursday

Indian markets ended a volatile session in red territory on Wednesday as gains in automobile, metal and IT shares were outweighed by losses in banking and financial services counters. Today, the markets are likely to make gap-up opening tracking firm cues from global peers. Traders will be taking encouragement with the commerce and industry ministry’s statement that foreign direct investments into the country more than doubled to $20.42 billion during the April-July period of the current fiscal. Total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow rose to $27.37 billion during the first four months of 2021-22. In the year-ago period, the same was at $16.92 billion. Some support will come as Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das underlined the need for a big push to infrastructure investment, education and digital economy to achieve sustainable growth and generate jobs in smaller cities. Traders may take note of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s statement that India is committed to an eminently achievable clean energy-based economy, and added that the country will soon have a policy for flex-fuel engines. Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal launched the National Single Window System for businesses and said the portal will usher in freedom from the legacy of running to government offices for approvals and registrations. However, there may be some cautiousness as India recorded a spike of 31,957 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours. The country also witnessed 279 deaths, taking the death toll to 446,080. So far, India has recorded 33,562,034 corona cases in total. Delhi reported 30 Covid-19 cases and no fatality. Kerala recorded 26,964 new Covid-19 cases and Maharashtra 3,608 cases. Oil & Gas industry stocks will be in focus as the government in its latest data showed that India's crude oil production fell 2.3 per cent in August but natural gas output rose by more than a fifth on the back of output from KG-D6 fields of Reliance-BP. There will be some reaction in mineral related industry stocks as the mines ministry said India's mineral production rose by 23.1 per cent in June over the same month a year ago. The index of mineral production of mining and quarrying sector for the month of June 2021 at 105.5, was 23.1 per cent higher as compared to the level in the month of June 2020.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday following the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy announcement. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Thursday supported by some positive news from struggling developer China Evergrande Group after the Federal Reserve took a hawkish tilt overnight.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks witnessed a volatile trading session on Wednesday and closed the day flat with negative bias amid weakness across Asian markets. After making cautious start, key gauges managed to keep heads in green terrain in morning session, as traders were taking support from private report stating that Indians are slowly making their way back to the office and is witnessing a consumption revival in the country with spending intent shifting towards more discretionary items. It also said decreasing number of COVID-19 cases as well as an aggressive vaccination drive have brought in a new wave of confidence amongst Indian consumers. Some support also came with Niti Aayog member V K Saraswat’s statement that the Indian innovation ecosystem is driven by knowledge economy, fundamental research driven by marketplace, and disruptive technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. However, markets continued to dance between gains and losses ahead of the closing bell, as traders were concerned as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) cut its projection of India's economic growth by 0.2 percentage points to 9.7 per cent for the current financial year. Some anxiety also came in after Asian Development Bank (ADB) has revised down India's Gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 10 percent for the current fiscal (FY22) from 11 percent predicted earlier, citing the adverse impact of the second wave of the pandemic. Adding to the pessimism, India recorded a spike of 27,333 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours. The country also witnessed 385 deaths, taking the death toll to 445,801. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 77.94 points or 0.13% to 58,927.33 and the CNX Nifty was down by 15.35 points or 0.09% to 17,546.65.

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