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Indian markets extended their gains for fourth straight session and ended higher on Wednesday with investors focusing on quarterly earnings updates. Today, markets are likely to get negative start amid downbeat global cues and a sharp decline in the rupee. There will be some cautiousness as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net offloaded shares worth Rs 453.91 crore on Wednesday (October 19), according to the provisional data available on the NSE. However, some respite may come later in the day as RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Ashima Goyal said that the efforts of the Reserve Bank to contain price rise by repeatedly increasing interest rates will help in containing inflation, which is likely to fall below 6 per cent next year. Goyal further said that the policy rate hikes have largely reversed pandemic-time cuts but the real rate remains low enough not to hurt the growth recovery. Besides, the finance ministry has released Rs 1,764 crore grant to four states. The states to which grants were released are Andhra Pradesh (Rs 136 crore), Chhattisgarh (Rs 109 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 799 crore) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 720 crore). Meanwhile, the GST Council is likely to meet in the first half of November to discuss the reports of the panel of ministers on setting up GST appellate tribunal and levy of tax casinos and online gaming. There will be some buzz in aviation industry stocks as data released by aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showing that domestic air passenger volume grew 64.61 per cent to 10.35 million in September over the same period last year. Diagnostic companies' stocks will be in focus as rating agency Crisil said a fall in Covid-19 tests will lead to an up to 7 per cent dent in diagnostic companies' toplines in FY23. It added that the fall in revenues in FY23 will come after a handsome 30 per cent growth in FY22 on higher testing, attributed the fall in Covid testing in the ongoing fiscal to the waning intensity of the pandemic and also a preference for self-test kits. There will be some reaction in metal stocks as the World Steel Association (WSA) said global steel demand will erode this year by 2.3% due to surging inflation and climbing interest rates, downgrading their forecast. Mineral industry stocks will be in limelight as the country’s mineral output registered a cumulative growth of 4.2 per cent in the first five months of this fiscal compared to the year-ago period. Investors await more of financial results from India Inc for domestic cues, with Bajaj Finance, Axis Bank, Asian Paints and ITC due to post their earnings later in the day. Moreover, private market intelligence platform Tracxn Technologies will debut in the market on October 20.

The US markets ended lower on Wednesday as weakness in shares of Abbott Laboratories and a rise in Treasury yields sapped momentum from the current earnings season and outweighed a surge in Netflix Inc shares. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Thursday as economic fears weigh, and US stocks fell as Treasury yields climbed overnight stateside.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks erased most of their initial gains but managed to end in green on Wednesday mostly because of buying in index majors Nestle, HDFC and Reliance Industries. Key gauges made positive start, as traders took some support with Icra Ratings’ statement that after rising steeply for a month, the cost of market borrowing for states declined sharply on Tuesday with the weighted average cut-off falling by 11 basis points to 7.72 per cent from 7.83 per cent last week. Some optimism also came after a Crisil Ratings’ latest report stated that securitisation volumes have jumped 48 per cent to over Rs 75,000 crore for the first half of the fiscal (H1FY23). It said the long track record of stable performance of securitised pools, despite several episodes of adversity, may have eased investor concerns, but some investors continue to be apprehensive. Traders took a note of report that Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, said the Indian government should focus on privatisation of state-run companies instead of chasing high divestment targets, pointing to market volatility and investors’ shaky appetite for risk. Sentiments remained positive in late afternoon deals, amid a private report stating that freshers' hiring intentions have increased to 61 per cent for the July-December 2022 period as employers across India look to hire due to the accelerated rate of tech and digital advancements. However, key gauges trimmed most of gains in final minutes of trade as traders were anxious with exchange data showed foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market on Tuesday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 153.40 crore. Meanwhile, kick-starting stakeholder consultation for 2023-24 Budget, the finance ministry has sought suggestions from industry and trade associations regarding direct and indirect taxes. Along with the suggestions, the industry has to submit justification for their demand which, if found with merit, could become part of the Union Budget for 2023-24 (April-March), to be tabled in Parliament on February 1, 2023. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 146.59 points or 0.25% to 59,107.19 and the CNX Nifty was up by 25.30 points or 0.14% to 17,512.25.

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