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Indian markets settled in negative territory for the second successive day on Thursday due to weak Asian cues. Today, the markets are likely to make negative start tracking weakness in global peers. Traders will be concerned as India Ratings cut the 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. 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 pessimism may come as the World Bank said the world may be edging toward a global recession as central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates to combat persistent inflation. There will be some cautiousness 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. Besides, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have net sold shares worth Rs 1,270.68 crore on September 15, as per provisional data available on the NSE. However, some respite may come later in the day as Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said that India is on the path to becoming a 10 trillion-dollar economy in 2030 and the third largest economy in the world by 2047. The Minister also highlighted India's progress in ensuring energy security for its citizens and outlined the Government's plans to make the country's energy mix more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Aviation industry stocks will be in focus as rating agency Icra said domestic air passenger traffic rose 5 per cent to 1.02 crore in August and a fast-paced recovery in the traffic is expected this fiscal on the back of normalcy in flight operations and widening vaccination coverage. There will be some reaction in telecom stocks as Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said telecom Sector in the country will witness more reforms in coming years and the industry too will have to do its bit and reciprocate by improving the quality of service significantly.

The US markets ended lower on Thursday as investors digested economic data that provided the Federal Reserve little reason to ease its aggressive interest rate hiking cycle. Asian markets are trading in red on Friday as investors digest US economic data and look ahead to the release of China’s industrial production and retail sales figures for August.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended lower for a second straight day on Thursday with Sensex closed below 60,000 mark and Nifty gave up on the 18,000 mark. Markets have made positive start on firm global cues. Traders took some encouragement with revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj’s statement that he expects GST collection to top the Rs 1.5-lakh-crore-mark from October.  Bajaj said for the last couple of months, we’ve been trying very hard to reach that milestone of Rs 1.5 trillion (lakh crore). But we have been failing a bit sometimes by Rs 2,000 crore and sometimes by even Rs 6,000 crore. Some support also came in as India and France agreed to set up an Indo-Pacific trilateral framework to roll out development projects, decided to expand strategic cooperation and vowed to work closely to deal with pressing global challenges such as food crisis triggered by the Ukraine war. However, benchmark indices gave up early gain and slipped into the red in morning deals, as traders turned cautious after Fitch Ratings has cut its growth forecast for India to 7 percent for the current financial year (FY23) from the previous estimate of 7.8 percent. It also slashed gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for the next fiscal year (FY24) to 6.7 percent from the earlier estimate of 7.4 percent. Some concern also came as Apex body for exporters Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) stating that with global trade facing headwinds due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, merchandise exports from India are expected to grow at a slower pace during the current fiscal. It may rise about 11 per cent to over $470 billion. Exports grew 45 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $422 billion in 2021-22. Besides, foreign institutional investors offloaded Rs 1,397.51 crore from the domestic equities on Wednesday. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 412.96 points or 0.68% to 59,934.01 and the CNX Nifty was down by 126.35 points or 0.70% to 17,877.40.

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