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Indian markets snapped two-day losing streak and managed to end higher with modest gains on Monday, with a weaker dollar and falling oil prices offering some support. Today, markets are likely to open in green ahead of the US CPI inflation report for May due later in the day, which remains critical for the Fed's policy trajectory. Encouraging macro-economic data -- inflation and industrial growth -- from the domestic front likely to lend some support to the indices. Retail inflation declined to a 25-month low of 4.25 per cent in May mainly on account of softening prices of food and fuel items. Inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) stood at 4.7 per cent in April and 7.04 per cent in May 2022. This is the fourth straight month when retail inflation has declined and the third month in a row that Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation remained within the RBI’s comfort zone of below 6 per cent. Besides, India’s industrial production growth rose to 4.2 per cent in April from 1.7 per cent in March 2023, mainly due to good performance by the manufacturing and mining sectors. Some support will come as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s office said India’s gross domestic product (GDP) reached the $3.75 trillion-mark in 2023, from around $2 trillion in 2014. Traders may take note of report that the government has released the third installment of tax devolution to state governments, amounting to Rs 1.18 trillion. This is significantly higher than the normal monthly devolution of Rs 59,140 crore. The Ministry of Finance said this is being done to help the states speed up capital spending, finance their development and welfare-related expenditures, and make resources available for priority projects and schemes. Airline stocks will be in focus as Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) relaxed its norms making it easier for Indian carriers to launch new overseas destinations. Current 33-point checklist pruned to 10 points related to airlines' preparedness for intended operations. Meanwhile, for the first time in 15 years, the government has imposed stock limits on wheat with immediate effect till March 2024 in a bid to check hoarding and contain rising prices of the key commodity.

The US markets ended higher on Monday as investors braced for CPI data and the Federal Reserve policy decision. Asian markets are trading mixed on Tuesday as investors braced for a raft of Chinese data for May to be released later this week.

Back home, Snapping the two-day falling streak, Indian equity benchmarks ended with a positive bias in an extremely range-bound session on Monday on the back of firm global markets, as investors were cautiously optimistic ahead of the US FOMC meeting later this week. Markets made a positive start and stayed in green for whole day as traders took support with Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran’s statement that the government is on the same page with the Reserve Bank of India on the GDP growth forecast for the current financial year which is 6.5 per cent. Some support also came as country’s largest commercial lender State Bank of India (SBI) revised GDP growth marginally upwards from 6.4 per cent to 6.5 per cent for the current financial year. Sentiments remained positive as data released by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showing that the unemployment rate in India fell to 7.7 per cent in May due to a decline in the labour participation at 441.9 million. Unemployment rate in India among people aged 15 years and above fell to 7.7 per cent in May 2023, from 8.5 per cent in the previous month. However, gains remained capped as investors remained on sidelines ahead of the retail inflation print for May and April's Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data, slated to be released later in the day. Some concern also came amid foreign fund outflows. Foreign institutional investors (FII) net sold shares worth net Rs 308.97 crore on June 9, according to the provisional data available on the NSE. Traders also took a note of Moody’s report stating that the Indian economy is expected to clock a 6-6.3 per cent growth in June quarter, and flagged risks of fiscal slippage arising from weaker-than-expected government revenues in the current fiscal. Moody’s growth estimate is lower than the 8 per cent projection for the first quarter made by the Reserve Bank last week. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 99.08 points or 0.16% to 62,724.71 and the CNX Nifty was up by 38.10 points or 0.21% to 18,601.50.

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