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Indian market off their day’s high due to fag-end selling in banking stocks, but managed to end session in green terrain for a second consecutive session on Thursday. Today, markets are likely to make cautious start as global markets take a break from the recent two-day rally. However, overnight fall in crude oil prices may support domestic indices. Foreign fund inflows likely to aid sentiments. Provisional data from the National Stock Exchange showed that foreign institutional investors net bought shares worth Rs 957.25 crore on November 16. Traders may be taking encouragement as S&P Global Ratings said in a report that India's GDP growth prospects should remain strong over the medium term, with GDP expanding 6-7.1 percent annually in fiscal years 2024-2026. Besides, the RBI said in its latest monthly bulletin that there were ‘miles to go’ to go on the inflation front and that India is ‘not out of the woods yet’. Meanwhile, chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will ease the delisting regulations at its upcoming board meeting. The move is expected to help promoters take their company private if they wish to do so. Telecom stocks will be in focus reacting to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showing that telecom operator Reliance Jio continued to strengthen its position in the Indian telecom market by gaining 3.24 million new users in August. Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 49,782 users in the latest month, Bharti Airtel saw its subscriber count increase by 1.21 million users. Stocks of banking and non-banking lenders will be in limelight as the RBI has increased the risk weights for consumer credit including credit card and personal loan exposure of banks to curtail high growth in consumer credit. Oil-linked stocks such as oil marketing companies, paints, tyres, oil explorers, etc may see some action on the bourses after Brent crude tumbled 5 per cent Thursday to hover around $77 per barrel-mark.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Thursday as investors digested a string of weak economic data and disappointing forecasts from Cisco and Walmart. Asian markets are trading mixed on Friday as a mid-week rally sparked by hopes of cooling US inflation lost steam.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks ended higher for the second consecutive session on Thursday, led by gains in IT, TECK and Consumer Durables stocks. After the cautious start, markets maintained a positive tone for most part of the day as traders took encouragement with CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) Chairman Nitin Gupta’s statement that the government will exceed the Rs 18.23 lakh crore direct tax collection target set for the current fiscal. Sentiments remained positive with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that India is expected to overtake Japan and Germany to emerge as the third largest economy in the world by 2027. She said India's economic growth is estimated to be just under 7 per cent during the year, the highest among major economies, despite global headwinds. She also said the Indian economy is therefore on the right track and is heading towards a bright future. Markets extended gains in late afternoon deals amid reports that the government is considering several measures such as a flexible framework for sale of products manufactured in special economic zones (SEZs) in the domestic market, easy de-notification norms, and streamlining approval processes for units. Some support came as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) snapped a 15-session selling streak during the previous session, buying Indian shares worth Rs 550 crore on a net basis. However profit taking in the final minutes of trade trimmed some gains. Traders took a note of the commerce ministry’s data showing that India's imports from Russia rose 64 per cent to $36.27 billion during the April-October period of FY24 on higher shipments of crude oil and fertiliser. With this, Russia has become India's second-largest import source during the first seven months of this fiscal. The imports were $22.13 billion during April-October 2022. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 306.55 points or 0.47% to 65,982.48 and the CNX Nifty was up by 89.75 points or 0.46% to 19,765.20.

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