After the hammering last week, indices hope for a recovery

The set-up for the Indian stock markets to begin the week is perfect as cues from the global peers are cheerful and bulls cannot hope for a better pitch than today to come out and take on the bears with their horns after the hammering they received last week. The outlook for the day is a flat start at the time of writing, SGX Nifty is trading around 10,799, up by 24 points.   
  
The Asian stock markets headed north on the first trading session of the week following strong close on the Wall Street on Friday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 has jumped 1.83 per cent, Hong Kong’s stock index Hang Seng has climbed 1.57 per cent; and China’s Shanghai Composite index has soared 1.28 per cent.  
  
Back home, the key benchmark indices remained volatile on the last trading session of the week and settled marginally lower. After opening the session on a flat note, the indices gradually drifted lower in the first half and, at one point, it seemed it would be a Black Friday. However, recovery was seen in the latter half of the session, which helped the indices to trim a major portion of the losses. In the end, Nifty ended down by 0.20 per cent at 10,724 and BSE Sensex slipped 0.19 per cent to 35,809. The sell-off in the broader indices was intense with Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap plunging 0.96 per cent and 1.15 per cent, respectively. All the sectoral indices ended the session in the red, with Nifty Pharma, Nifty Metal and Nifty PSU Bank being the top losers.  
  
The US stock indices edged higher on Friday on the back of optimism about trade talks between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China. The Dow Jones outperformed its counterparts as it surged 1.74 per cent, followed by S&P 500 Index which gained 1.09 per cent and the Nasdaq, which advanced 0.61 per cent. In the economic news, industrial production report showed a 0.6 per cent MoM fall in January, while the consumer sentiment index climbed to 95.5 in February.   
  
The European markets ended Friday’s session on a high note. The DAX of Germany jumped 1.89 per cent, the CAC 40 of France rose 1.79 per cent and the FTSE 100 of the UK edged higher by 0.55 per cent.