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Indian markets erased previous session gains and ended lower in a volatile session on Thursday amid selling across the sectors. Today, markets likely to start session on a weaker note amid mixed moves across global markets. Foreign fund outflows likely to dent domestic sentiments. According to the provisional data available on the NSE, foreign institutional investors (FII) offloaded shares worth a net Rs 693.28 crore on June 22. Traders will be concerned as the minutes of the June MPC released by the central bank revealed that sounding a note of caution, RBI’s rate-setting panel member Jayanth R Varma opined that monetary policy is now dangerously close to levels at which it can inflict significant damage to the economy. There will be some cautiousness as the Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said that the slow monsoon was causing a delay in the sowing of oilseeds in the ongoing kharif season, which might impact production. It added area sown to oilseeds remained low at 0.41 million hectares till last week, as against 0.48 million hectares in the year-ago period. However, sharp fall in crude oil prices overnight may support the domestic indices to trim losses. Traders may take note of report that Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman discussed G20 efforts to strengthen multilateral development banks (MDBs) to enable utilisation of their existing resources more effectively to address the global challenges of the 21st century. Defense stocks will be in focus after the U.S. and Indian leaders announced defense and technology deals, including a purchase of American spy drones. Power stocks will be in focus as highlighting that power demand grew by 10 per cent in the first quarter of the current financial year, Union Minister R K Singh said the growth streak would continue. He added the demand grew by 8 per cent during the last financial year and they are hopeful it will grow further. Information Technology (IT) related stocks will be in limelight amid weaker than expected Q2 result from global tech giant Accenture.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Thursday despite policy tightening fears from the U.S. to Norway and the U.K. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Friday as rate hikes from policymakers in England, Norway and Switzerland pushed global bond yields higher.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks snapped two-day winning streak and ended lower with losses of around half percent on Thursday, facing heavy volatility, amid emergence of profit-taking and negative trend in the US markets. Markets made a cautious start and traded with volatility in early deals as traders got anxious after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) restrained 135 entities from accessing the securities market and directed them to impound around Rs 126 crore of wrongful gains from alleged market manipulation done through bulk SMSes. Markets faced selling pressure at higher levels in afternoon deals, even as Fitch Ratings raised its forecast for India's economic growth to 6.3 per cent for current fiscal year 2023-24 from 6 per cent it had predicted previously. This is primarily because of a stronger outturn in the first quarter and near-term momentum. Traders paid no heed towards a report by rating agency CRISIL stating that the residential real estate sector across the top six cities of India - Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, and Hyderabad - is expected to clock 8-10 per cent sales growth this fiscal year. It noted that buoyant residential demand across all segments has resulted in robust sales growth in the past two financial years. Traders also ignored provisional data from the National Stock Exchange showing that foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth Rs 4,013.10 crore on June 21. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 284.26 points or 0.45% to 63,238.89 and the CNX Nifty was down by 85.60 points or 0.45% to 18,771.25.

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