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Indian markets ended a range-bound session with modest gains on Monday and extended their winning streak for a sixth straight session, supported by buying seen in the auto, power, oil & gas and real estate stocks. Today, domestic indices are likely to get flat-to-positive start tracking gains in global markets. Foreign fund inflows likely to aid domestic sentiments. National Stock Exchange's provisional data showed foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth Rs 882.52 crore on April 10. Sentiments will get a boost as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are being signed in a much faster way nowadays and also informed that the India-UK FTA negotiations are ‘going on as we speak’. Some support will come with a private report stating that the stance of the policy continues to favour withdrawal of accommodation, clearly implying that the RBI will be back on a rate hiking track if there are any nasty surprises to the anticipated softening trend of Headline CPI. Traders will be getting some encouragement as India Ratings said the share of combined capex of states in the GDP may improve marginally to 2.8% in FY24 from 2.5% in FY23. However, traders may be concerned as a private weather forecaster predicted ‘below normal’ monsoon in India in 2023 on account of El Nino conditions. The monsoon rainfall is expected to the tune of 94%, with an error margin of 5%, of the long period average (LPA) of 868.6mm. Meanwhile, traders and millers of pulses have requested the government to increase the minimum support price (MSP) of pigeon peas (tur dal) to encourage the farmers to grow the pulse. IT stocks would be in focus as investors await earnings from tech giants. TCS will unveil its quarterly earnings on April 12, whereas Infosys' earnings are due on April 13. There will be some reaction in real estate stocks with a private report that realty developers in the March quarter of financial year 2022-23 (Q4FY23) posted robust sales numbers.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Monday as investors digested Friday's employment report and prepared for an eventful week of inflation data and bank earnings. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Tuesday as the Bank of Korea held interest rates at 3.5 percent, in line with expectations.

Back home, In a volatile trade, Indian equity benchmarks erased most of their initial gains and ended flat with a positive bias on Monday as investors preferred to stay on the sidelines ahead of the start of quarterly earnings. Markets made slightly positive start as traders took some support with Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that India's merchandise exports touched $447 billion in FY23, up from $442 billion in FY22. This would translate into a 6 per cent year-on-year jump in exports. But, markets soon erased initial gains to trade flat as some concerns came with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) statistical supplement showing that India's foreign exchange reserves retreated from more than eight-month highs to $578.45 billion as of the week ended March 31. That is a decrease of around $380 million from the previous week. However, key gauges regained traction in afternoon deals, taking support from IMF Working Paper stating that India has built a world-class digital public infrastructure which is transforming lives and economy and can be a lesson for many countries to follow. Traders also took a note of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama’s statement that the inflation has been kept at six per cent or below despite adverse circumstances as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But, markets failed to hold gains and ended flat as traders restrained from taking any long position ahead of upcoming macro-economic data industrial growth, retail & wholesale inflation and exports & imports for more directional cues. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 13.54 points or 0.02% to 59,846.51 and the CNX Nifty was up by 24.90 points or 0.14% to 17,624.05.

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