Flat opening seen amid muted cues from Asian peers

A flat opening is in store for Indian markets as cues from Asian peers are tepid. The auto stocks will be in the limelight as auto numbers for June have once again flattered, albeit on a smaller base. Investors will also keep an eye on India’s manufacturing sector data for June which is slated to be released today. Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange is currently trading marginally down by 11 points at 10,680.    

Indices across Asia kicked off the second half of 2018 on a tepid note with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index and China’s Shanghai Composite are trading with modest losses of 0.08% and 0.38%, respectively. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is closed for a holiday.  

Back home, Friday turned out to be a fabulous day of trading for the Indian equity benchmarks. The key indices recaptured their crucial levels of 35,400 (BSE Sensex) and 10,700 (NSE Nifty) amid recovery in the rupee and a pullback by the Asian peers. The broader markets too had a good outing as these outperformed the frontline indices, with the Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap surging 1.89% and 2.37%, respectively. On the sectoral front, all sectoral indices ended in the green, with top gainers being Nifty Metal and Nifty Realty, both settling with gains of over 2%. For the month of June, the Nifty index slipped 0.20% and for the second quarter of the calendar year 2018, Nifty index registered a whopping gain of about 6%. For the first half of the year, the Nifty index is up by 1.74%.  

In the US, after trading with decent gains for a major part of the trading session on Friday, the stock markets retreated from higher levels and ended the day with minuscule gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55 points to close at 24,271, the S&P 500 edged up 2 points to finish at 2,718 and tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 7 points to end at 7,510.  

European indices took a U-turn and ended the last trading session of the week in the green after EU leaders reached an agreement on migration. The DAX of Germany jumped 1.06%, the CAC 40 of France climbed 0.91% and the UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.28%.