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Indian markets snapped their seven-day winning run and ended modestly lower on Thursday as investors opted to book some profits after recent sharp gains on strong GDP numbers and BJP's win in assembly elections. Today, markets are likely to get a positive start tracking firm global cues and ahead of Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy decision later in the day. There are expectations that the RBI is likely to maintain status quo on the key repo rate, holding it steady at 6.5 per cent. Sentiments will get a boost as Niti Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said India has the potential to grow at 8 per cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning democracy. Traders may take note of Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s statement that the digital economy will contribute 20 per cent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026. However, foreign fund outflows may dent domestic sentiments. According to provisional data from the National Stock Exchange, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Indian shares worth Rs 1,564 crore on a net basis on Thursday. There may be some cautiousness with a private report that India's retail inflation likely picked up in November due to higher food prices after declining for three months, bringing it closer to the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 2 percent-6 percent target range. Meanwhile, rate sensitive banks, auto and realty stocks will be in focus today. Also, private sector banks have increased their share in term deposits to 35 per cent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), up from 32 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022-23 (FY23). There will be some reaction in insurance industry stocks with a report that the new business premium of life insurance companies declined by 25.28 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in November 2023 as the premiums of both the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and private insurers saw a decline.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday after weekly jobless claims data indicated cooling of the U.S. labour market, aiding expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut by March 2024. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Friday tracking overnight gains on Wall Street.

Back home, snapping their seven-days winning run, Indian equity benchmarks took a breather on Thursday and ended marginally lower, owing to some profit-taking ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy outcome tomorrow. Weakness in Asian peers also weighed on the sentiment. Indian equities began the weekly expiry day on a tepid note amid selling pressure from foreign institutional investors. Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data. Some concern came after Moody's Investors Service issued a negative outlook for global banks in 2024, attributing the negativity to the repercussions of central banks' tightening of monetary policies. However, markets managed to cut some losses in late morning deals, as traders got some support after Industry chamber CII expects the country's economy to grow at 6.8% in the current fiscal and accelerate to 7 per cent in 2024-25, driven by the government's continued focus on infrastructure development and promotion of ease of doing business. Some support also came with Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash’s statement that the Startup India initiative was launched by the Government to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, startups and encouraging investments in the startup ecosystem of the country. Besides, NITI Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said that India has potential to grow at 8 per cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning democracy.  But, markets failed to erase all the losses and ended marginally in red as some pessimism remained among traders amid a private report stating that hiring activity for white-collar jobs witnessed a 12 per cent on-year decline during October-November largely due to fall in recruitment trends in IT-Software, telecom and education sectors. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 132.04 points or 0.19% to 69,521.69 and the CNX Nifty was down by 36.55 points or 0.17% to 20,901.15.

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