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Indian markets ended their two-day winning streak and settled in the red on Wednesday as selling pressure in banking and financial stocks amid a bearish trend in global markets unnerved investors. Today, markets are likely to open in red on the last trading session of Samvat 2080 amid mixed global cues. Overnight rise in crude oil prices likely to dent domestic sentiments. Oil prices rose on Wednesday after Reuters reported that OPEC+ could delay a planned oil production increase in December by a month or more because of concern over soft oil demand and rising supply. There will be some cautiousness as the government data showed that the growth in production of eight key infrastructure sectors slowed down to 2 per cent in September as against 9.5 per cent in the same month last year. However, the output growth is positive against a contraction of 1.6 per cent in August. Out of the eight key sectors, three - crude oil, natural gas and electricity - recorded negative growth in September. Moreover, government data showed the Centre’s fiscal deficit at the end of the first half of financial year FY25 touched 29.4 per cent of the full-year target. In absolute terms, fiscal deficit - the gap between government’s expenditure and revenue - was at Rs 4,74,520 crore at September-end. However, traders may take note of report that India and Saudi Arabia have discussed ways to enhance cooperation in areas of fertilizers, petrochemicals, and mining to boost trade and investments. These sectors were discussed during a meeting between Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Saudi Minister for Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar bin Ibrahim Alkhorayef in Riyadh. The bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $43 billion in 2023-24 as against $53 billion in 2022-23. Besides, to facilitate ease of doing business for Small and Medium REITs (SM REITs), markets regulator Sebi has proposed standardising disclosures in scheme offer documents and simplifying public issue processes for such schemes. Stocks related to gold will be in focus as the World Gold Council (WGC) in a report said India’s gold demand witnessed an 18 per cent on-year growth during the July-September quarter of this year to 248.3 tonnes, as the reduction in gold import duty resulted in a revival in jewellery demand. Meanwhile, BF Utilities, Narayana Hrudayalaya,Sudarshan Pharma Industries, Sonalis Consumer Products and Tata Investment Corporation  are set to announce their results later in the day for the second quarter of the current financial year.

The US markets ended lower on Wednesday amid uncertainty regarding next week's US presidential election. Asian markets are trading mixed on Thursday as investors await the Bank of Japan’s rate decision, as well as key business activity figures from China.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks snapped two-day gains and ended lower with losses of over half percent each on Wednesday, dragged down by Consumer Durables, Banking and TECK stocks amid weak trends in global markets. Besides, weak earnings numbers and persistent foreign fund outflows impacted market sentiments. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital markets on Tuesday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 548.69 crore, according to exchange data.  Key indices opened negative and traded in a tight range with negative bias for most part of the session, as traders remained cautious with Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas stating that no one can predict fuel prices because of the uncertainty that has prevailed in different parts of the world citing tensions in the Middle East. However, markets pared most of their initial losses in the middle of the session, taking support from President Droupadi Murmu’s statement that India is the fastest growing major economy and is likely to become the third largest economy soon. She said the Indian economy had been demonstrating resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges and the country's economy was likely to grow tenfold by 2047. But markets failed to hold recovery and slipped into red terrain in late afternoon deals, as some pessimism remained among traders with credit rating agency, India Ratings and Research’s (Ind-Ra) report stating that a weakness in GDP growth is expected due to higher-than-expected inflation, a weakness in industrial growth, especially manufacturing activities, weak exports and slower growth in net taxes in 1QFY25. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 426.85 points or 0.53% to 79,942.18, and the CNX Nifty was down by 126.00 points or 0.51% to 24,340.85.

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