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Indian markets extended losses to the fourth session in a row on Wednesday, amid concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Today, markets are likely to start the session on a positive note mirroring broadly positive cues. Traders will be taking encouragement with a private report showing that the New Year will herald the return of normalcy and witness the growth momentum gaining steam, and pegged the real GDP growth estimate at 8.2 per cent for FY2022-23. Some support will come as preliminary data of the commerce ministry showed that India's exports rose 44.41 per cent to $16.46 billion year-on-year during December 1-14, 2021. Imports too grew 42.57 per cent to $27.53 billion during the period under review. Meanwhile, union minister Nitin Gadkari said the government is working on a scheme to raise funds from the public at 6 per cent annual interest rate for road infrastructure projects. However, there will be some cautiousness as the state of the economy report released with the December bulletin of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed that the Indian economy continues to forge ahead, emerging out of shackles of pandemic, but the rise of the Omicron variant has emerged as the biggest risk factor. Also, IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said that as the global economy recovers from the pandemic, a great deal of uncertainty remains about new COVID-19 variants and increased inflation pressures in many countries. There will be some buzz in banking stocks as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will introduce revised norms for banks for setting aside capital for operational risks from April 01, 2023, to ensure robustness in working of banking entities. Auto stocks will be in focus as I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said the Union Cabinet approved a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for semiconductor and display board production in the country. There will be some reaction in power sector stocks as the government said India's installed nuclear power capacity has grown from 4,780 MW to 6,780 MW, an increase of over 40 per cent, in the last seven years. Passenger vehicles industry stocks will be in limelight as ratings agency ICRA revised downwards growth forecast for the domestic passenger vehicles industry to 8-11 per cent in the ongoing fiscal from the earlier estimate of 14-17 per cent on account of the ongoing semiconductor shortage. Besides, Supriya Lifescience IPO will open for subscription today and will close on December 20. The company plans to raise up to Rs 700 crore by way of fresh issue of shares worth Rs 200 crore and offer for sale worth Rs 500 crore.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday after Federal approved plans to more quickly wind down pandemic stimulus efforts. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Thursday tracked Wall Street higher after the Fed said it would end its pandemic-era bond buys in March and make way for three interest rate hikes next year to tackle inflation.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended lower for fourth session in a row on Wednesday, tracking losses in index majors Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, ITC and TCS. After making cautious start, frontline indices slipped into red terrain, as traders got anxious as Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the second time in three months scaled down India’s growth estimate for the fiscal year ending March 2022 due to supply chain issue of industries. It has pegged India’s growth estimate at 9.7% for the current fiscal in its latest supplement. It had projected a growth rate of 10% in its September supplement. Some anxiety also came as Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) stated that the urban unemployment rate spiked to the double-digit rate for the first time in 17 weeks, to be 10.09% for the week-ended December 12, pushing the country’s overall jobless rate to a nine-week high of 8.53%. However, key indices have recouped some of its losses in late afternoon deals, taking support from the government data showing that India's merchandise exports jumped 27.16 per cent to $30.04 billion in November on the back of good performance by sectors like petroleum products, engineering goods and electronic items. Some support also came with Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla’s statement that the Indian economy is rapidly recovering from the pandemic-induced downturn and is returning to its trajectory of rapid growth. He also said India's trade figures are promising and that the total foreign direct investment the country received in the current financial year stood at $81.72 billion, the highest ever. Though, markets failed to hold recovery and ended lower with losses of over half percent, as some concern remained among traders with data showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market, as they sold shares worth Rs 763.18 crore on Tuesday. Besides, nervousness ahead of the US Fed outcome and increasing warning calls by the World Health Organisation (WHO) against the Omicron coronavirus variant, which is now spreading faster than the Delta variant, also kept investors on the sidelines. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 329.06 points or 0.57% to 57,788.03 and the CNX Nifty was down by 103.50 points or 0.60% to 17,221.40.

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