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Benchmark indices ended lower for the third straight session on Friday led by weak global cues. Today, markets are likely to get cautious start tracking weak global cues. Traders will be concerned as data from Reserve Bank showed India Inc's investment in their overseas ventures dropped by 59 per cent on an annual basis to $1.03 billion in August this year. Some pessimism may come as the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.234 billion to stand at $550.871 billion for the week ended September 9. There will be some cautiousness with a report that India's current account deficit (CAD), a key indicator of balance of payment of a country, is likely to remain within 3 percent of the GDP in 2022-23 as against 1.2 percent during the last fiscal. Foreign fund outflows likely to dent sentiments in domestic markets. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have net sold shares worth Rs 3,260.05 crore on September 16, as per provisional data available on the NSE. However, some respite may come later in the day as the finance ministry said gross direct tax collections grew 30 per cent to Rs 8.36 lakh crore till September 17 of current fiscal year on higher advance tax mop-up buoyed by the economic revival post pandemic. Some support may come as foreign investors pumped Rs 12,000 crore into the Indian equity market so far this month on hopes that global central banks, particularly the US Fed, may go slow on rate hikes as inflation starts to cool off. Traders may take note of report that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled the National Logistics Policy that seeks to address challenges facing the transport sector and bring down the logistics cost of businesses from 13-14 per cent to a single digit. He said the policy aims to expedite the last-mile delivery, helping businesses save time and money. Besides, Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the National Logistics Policy which focuses on re-engineering, digitisation and multimodal transport, would further boost ease of doing business for all industries and stakeholders. Some optimism may also come as the government in its monthly economic review for August said that a sharp rebound in consumer spending and rising employment will sustain economic growth in India in the months ahead. Oil & gas and aviation industry stocks will be in focus as the government cut the windfall profit tax on locally produced crude oil in line with a fall in international rates, and reduced the levy on export of diesel and jet fuel (ATF).

The US markets ended lower on Friday, falling to two-month lows as a warning of impending global slowdown from FedEx hastened investors' flight to safety at the conclusion of a tumultuous week. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Monday ahead of major central bank meetings this week.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks traded lower for the third consecutive session and ended with losses of around two percent on Friday, led by a fall in global equities amid expectations of strong a rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.  After a gap-down opening, markets continued to reel under pressure, as foreign fund outflows have dented investor sentiments. According to data available with the BSE, foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth a net Rs 1,270.68 crore in the domestic market on Thursday. Traders remained cautious as India Ratings has cuts India's FY23 GDP growth forecast to 6.9 per cent from 7 per cent, joining other institutions who have cut their projections to below 7 per cent since the release of the April-June quarter GDP data. Despite private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) and gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) growth coming in better than its expectations in Q1, the agency expects the slowdown in the growth of government final consumption expenditure (GFCE) and worsening of net exports to weigh on the FY23 GDP growth. Some concern also came as Global Rating agency Moody’s said India’s rated infrastructure firms can largely withstand further depreciation in the value of rupee against US dollar due to financial hedges and other mitigants. Key indices extended their fall to close near intraday lows as International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that the global economic outlook remains downbeat and some countries are expected to slip into recession in 2023, but it is too early to say if there will be a widespread global recession. The IMF in July revised down global growth to 3.2% in 2022 and 2.9% in 2023. It will release a new outlook next month. Some pessimism also came after the World Bank said the world could be heading towards a global recession in 2023 as central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates to combat persistent inflation. Traders overlooked Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri’s statement that the country is on the path to becoming a 10 trillion-dollar economy in 2030 and the third largest economy in the world by 2047. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 1093.22 points or 1.82% to 58,840.79 and the CNX Nifty was down by 346.55 points or 1.94% to 17,530.85.

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