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Indian markets ended with minor losses on Thursday after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the inline Interim Budget with no big announcements. Today, start of the session is likely to be optimistic mirroring firm cues from Wall Street overnight as well as higher opening in Asian counterparts. Fall in the 10-year US Treasury bond yield also likely to aid domestic sentiments. Overnight sharp fall in crude oil prices may support Indian markets. Sentiments will get a boost as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India has sustained its export growth notwithstanding the global challenges emerging due to issues like the Israel-Hamas war and the Budget has laid out a strong foundation to push the economic growth. Some support will come as Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva said that the economic success of India is grounded in the pursuit of reforms over the last years and exuded confidence that it would achieve its goal of being a developed nation by 2047 by staying the course. There will be some buzz in automobile industry stocks with a private report that the Indian auto industry posted its highest ever monthly domestic passenger vehicle (PV) wholesales in January 2024 at 394,571 units, on the back of rising demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and removal of supply constraints. Insurance industry stocks will be in focus as the insurance regulator asked general insurers to put Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (AYUSH) at par with other medical treatments in their health insurance policies, citing increased popularity. There will be some reaction in dairy and fisheries sectors stocks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the dairy sector will soon get a comprehensive programme to boost milk production, while implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) will be stepped up to benefit the fisheries sector. Meanwhile, individual stocks - Bank of India, Delhivery, IndiGo, LIC Housing Finance, Medplus Health Services, Mahindra Holidays, NIIT, RateGain Travel Technologies, Sundaram Fasteners, Tata Motors, Titagarh Rail Systems, Torrent Pharma, TTK Healthcare, UPL and Whirlpool are likely to be in focus as these companies announce Q3 results today.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday as traders shifted their focus from a likely lack of rate cut in March to corporate earnings. Asian markets are trading in green on Friday following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended trading session with modest losses amid lacklustre moves post the Budget FY25 proposals announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Markets made a positive start, as traders took support with provisional data from the NSE showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 1,660.72 crore on January 31. Some optimism also came as Goods and services tax (GST) collections hit the second highest monthly figure ever at over Rs 1.72 trillion in January, growing by 10.4 per cent over Rs 1.56 trillion from the same month in the previous year. These GST figures were till 5 pm of January 31, and final collection for the month would be higher. However, volatility struck over the bourses in late morning deals, as markets erased all of their initial gains and turned negative to settle with marginal losses. Traders got anxious with data showing that India’s core sector output growth hit a 14-month low of 3.8 per cent year-on-year in December on the back of a high base and a moderation in the growth of six constituent sectors. Traders failed to draw any sense of relief from interim budget 2024-25. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman kept Income Tax rates unchanged in the Interim Budget. Besides, Finance Minister increased the infrastructure capital expenditure in the interim budget for FY 2025 by 11.1% to Rs 11.1 lakh crore. The budget also witnessed biggest sectoral allocation awarded to Defence at Rs 6.2 lakh crore. In 2023 budget, the sector received nearly Rs 6 lakh crore. Traders also overlooked India’s final manufacturing PMI showing that manufacturing activity accelerated in January. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) recovered from an 18-month low of 54.9 in December to 56.5 in January.  Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 106.81 points or 0.15% to 71,645.30 and the CNX Nifty was down by 28.25 points or 0.13% to 21,697.45.

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