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Indian markets declined for the sixth straight session on Wednesday, its longest run of declines since June, as investor sentiment for risky assets remained weak amid mounting odds of a global recession. Today, the start of the F&O series expiry session is likely to be positive mirroring strong global cues. Traders will be taking encouragement as rating agency Icra retained its previous growth forecast of 7.2 per cent for the current fiscal, citing revival in contact-intensive services and a pick-up in government and private expenditure. It said growth is expected to pick up to pre-Covid levels on the back of pent-up demand, even though on an annualised basis, the absolute numbers will be falling from Q1 (13.5 per cent) to a much lower level in Q2 and further down in the two remainder quarters due to the high base. Some support will come with report that Goods and services tax (GST) collections in September are likely to be about Rs 1.45 trillion, and the monthly average mop-up in FY23 could be around Rs 1.55 trillion. Besides, India has proposed additional customs duties of 15 per cent on the import of 22 products, including whiskey, cheese and diesel engine parts, from the UK in retaliation to Britain's decision to impose restrictions on steel products. Meanwhile, capital markets regulator Sebi came out with guidelines pertaining to preferential issues and institutional placement of units by emerging investment vehicles -- REIT and InvIT. However, sustained selling by foreign portfolio investors likely to dampen sentiments in markets. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net offloaded shares worth Rs 2,772.49 crore on September 28, according to the data available on the NSE. There will be some buzz in the tea industry stocks as tea exports during the period January to July in the calendar year 2022 have touched 116.36 million kg as compared to 103.38 million kg in the same period of 2021. According to Tea Board data, exports to the largest importing block, the CIS countries, remained almost stagnant at 25.20 million kg as against 24.98 million kg in the first seven months of 2021. There will be some reaction in battery industry stocks with a private report stating that India's Li-ion battery demand will grow from the current stage of 3 GWh to 20 GWh by 2026 and 70 GWh by 2030. It added that this will need over $10 billion to boost cell manufacturing and raw material refining to serve the local demand.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday as traders reacted positively to the Bank of England's plans to begin temporarily purchasing long-dated U.K. government bonds to address dysfunction in the gilt market. Asian markets are trading in green on Thursday following the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended nearly a per cent lower on Wednesday, tracking a weak trend in global markets. Markets started off on pessimistic note, as traders were concerned as the fourth round of the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) released by the Labour Ministry showed that employment generation in nine non-farm sectors slowed down in the March quarter of FY22, possibly under the impact of Omicron variant of Covid-19, with additional job creation dipping to 350,000 during the quarter, from 390,000 in the preceding December quarter of the financial year.  However, key gauges erased all the losses to trade flat in afternoon deals, as traders took some support with the income tax department’s statement that the net direct tax collection has increased 23 per cent to Rs 7.04 lakh crore so far this fiscal. Some support also came as Economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth dismissed the concerns over depletion of forex reserve as overblown and said India has fairly large reserve to tide over the current situation. But, markets failed to hold recovery and fell sharply in late afternoon deals to end near day’s low point as the Reserve Bank's rate-setting panel started its 3-day deliberations on Wednesday amid expectations of yet another rate hike of 50 basis points to check high inflation, in line with similar actions taken by other major central banks, including the US Fed. Traders also remain concerned with continued foreign fund outflows. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have net sold shares worth Rs 2,823.96 crore on September 27, as per provisional data available on the NSE. Meanwhile, capital markets regulator SEBI came out with a new framework for daily price limit for commodity futures contracts in a bid to resolve the difference in closing price at domestic exchange and global bourse. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 509.24 points or 0.89% to 56,598.28 and the CNX Nifty was down by 148.80 points or 0.87% to 16,858.60.