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Indian markets ended in red on Thursday as tensions in West Asia, coupled with sticky US Treasury yields at around 5 per cent, triggered risk-off sentiment among investors. Today, benchmark indices are likely to get flat-to-positive start tracking gains in Asian counterparts. Also, some support will come after crude prices fell more than $2 a barrel overnight amid easing Middle East fears. Israel has heeded to US' request of delaying its Gaza invasion to make time to negotiate hostage releases and keep humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza. Traders may take encouragement as a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) showed that replacing natural gas consumption with biogas and biomethane incrementally to 20 per cent by 2030 can help India cut liquefied natural gas import bills by $29 billion between financial years 2025 and 2030. Investors will be eying the upcoming the Reserve Bank of India’s meeting of senior officials from some banks likely to be held on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 to discuss the prevailing liquidity conditions in the banking system. Besides, the Ministry of Finance said the span of nine years, that is Assessment Year (AY) 2013-2014 and 2021-2022, saw an increase of 90 per cent in filing of Income Tax Returns (ITR) by individual tax payers. The number of ITRs filed increased from 3.36 crore in AY 2013-14 to 6.37 crore in AY 2021-22. However, foreign fund outflows likely to dent sentiments. According to the provisional data available on the NSE, foreign institutional investors (FII) offloaded shares worth net Rs 7,702.53 crore on October 26, 2023. Some cautiousness may come with a private report that fundraising through corporate bonds fell in October due to the rising cost of borrowing through these instruments. Meanwhile, China was the top exporter of finished steel to India in the first six months of the fiscal year that began in April. Investors will keep close eye on earnings results for more directional cues with most of the companies to report their quarterly results. Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki India, Bajaj Finserv, SBI Life Insurance, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Laboratories are among others to report quarterly numbers today.

The US markets ended lower on Thursday as investors weighed disappointing tech earnings against upbeat GDP data. Asian markets are trading in green on Friday as the dollar steadied after hitting a three-week high in the previous session on robust U.S. GDP data.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks continued reeling under selling pressure for the sixth consecutive session on Thursday as geopolitical tensions, a rise in US bond yields, and a sell-off in blue-chip stocks made investors jittery. After the gap-down start, the markets gradually drifted lower as the day progressed and finally settled around the day’s lows as traders got anxious with provisional data from the National Stock Exchange showing that foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 4,236.60 crore on October 25. Sentiments remained down-beat with private report stating that Indian consumer spending during this year's festival season will be slightly better than in 2022, but probably not enough to ramp up the speed of what is already the world's fastest-growing major economy. Investors overlooked report that investment in the Indian capital markets through participatory notes rose over a six-year high at Rs 1.33 lakh crore at September-end, making it the seventh consecutive monthly increase, on the back of robust macroeconomic fundamentals. Traders also paid no heed towards reports that government think tank NITI Aayog initiated a study to develop a comprehensive action plan to bridge India's trade deficit with China over time and align trading strategies with emerging geopolitical situation and potential risks to safeguard supply chains. The Aayog has invited bids from consultants to lead the two studies in areas of reducing trade gap with China and boosting local manufacturing. Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet has approved a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) between India and Japan on a Semiconductor Supply Chain Partnership. The memorandum of cooperation between the two countries was signed in July. Japan has become the second Quad partner after the US to sign an agreement with India for the joint development of the semiconductor ecosystem and maintain the resilience of its global supply chain. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 900.91 points or 1.41% to 63,148.15 and the CNX Nifty was down by 264.90 points or 1.39% to 18,857.25.

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